


Pirate Trouble

by roseveare



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Dubious Consent, Haven Trash Party, Kink!Nathan, M/M, Pirates, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-18 01:46:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7294567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseveare/pseuds/roseveare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duke is transformed into a pirate and Nathan is in trouble. Pirate!Duke/Officer!Nathan dub/non-con kink with pretensions of depth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Bucket List

**Author's Note:**

> Set in an AU season 4, which I am going to refer to as Kink!Nathan 'verse, but it started out life as a side-story to [Unbreakable](http://archiveofourown.org/series/158897). The tone of this fic was a lot lighter/crackier than that series, though, even while revisiting similar themes. On balance, I decided to make much tweaking of the backstory to extricate it from Unbreakable, result that I have now _also_ acquired a Kink!Nathan 'verse. Bucket List II (Bucket List I forms the prologue below) may land eventually, if I manage to find a plot and put all the other Kink!Nathan fragments I wrote together. This one's also been held quite a while, as I wanted to get [Shattered](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6460489) out first, on account of it being a 70k novel with a far more serious treatment of very similar concepts, and that fic took over a year to edit.
> 
> #2: Let's have a Haven Trash Party tag. Go on, let's.
> 
> THANKS! to Miah_Arthur for beta-reading, and to everyone else who chipped in comments on the way.

**Prologue**

**Bucket List**

The first time they fuck, Nathan is drunk and Duke is so tired it practically counts as an altered state of consciousness.

Duke comes back from the _Gull_ feeling the start of a tight tension headache. Wade, fucking _Wade_ is in Haven, in his bar, apparently _running_ his bar and having a grand old time doing it, and that doesn't exactly make it look like Wade is planning to leave anytime soon. Which would be fine, because it's not as though he doesn't like Wade. He's capable of large-scale moping and occasionally a neediness that unsettles Duke, but he seems a decent guy so far as Duke remembers from various Christmases and funerals of the last thirty years. But _not in Haven_ , oblivious amid Troubles, with the Crocker Legacy lurking.

Duke blunders into the _Rouge_ , swearing about changed locks and dust and the damage of the winter that he can't see, since it's dark already, but swears he can _smell_. He spent an hour getting Jennifer settled into Audrey's old apartment, mostly doing cleaning. He's dog-tired, so really didn't need the cleaning. As far as he's concerned, it's still that same day they gathered on that hillside overlooking the town while meteors fell. His fucking _day_ has lasted six months, so he has every right to be tired. All he wants to do is collapse. He'll deal with whatever problems the boat has in the morning.

He's dropping a trail of garments as he stumbles to his bedroom, leaving him clad in just his pants as he shoves the door and sees the faint glow of a light. There were no lights on outside in the hallway or in the rest of the boat. Of course not; supposedly no-one's been there in months. He had to switch them on himself. He fumbles and inwardly curses his carelessness, unarmed state, and everything in existence, and wishes like hell there was a firearm within lunging distance as he registers the lamp lit in the corner by the bed.

Then he stands in the door and blinks.

His boat hasn't been broken into by lurking Guard murderers, but his heart doesn't return to anything like its regular beat.

In the lamp's dim light he can see Nathan sprawled out in the centre of the bed, naked as the day he was born, legs apart, knees slightly drawn up, only the shadows giving him any trace of modesty. There's a bottle hugged under his arm, and his head moves sluggishly to acknowledge Duke's arrival.

He says, "Well, I'm here," like that announcement follows some agreement or at least conversation they had earlier in the day.

Duke chokes. "You are. You are definitely here. _All_ of you." It occurs to him that if Nathan is in his boat then a hatch or door somewhere is broken and not properly secured, because Nathan does not pick locks. In fact, Nathan may very well have shot his way on board. "You're fucking crazy. Don't you realise it's freezing in here?"

Duke slams the door behind him and goes to turn the heating on to combat the cold and damp left by six months of disuse, hugging his arms around his bare chest.

Nathan gestures unconcernedly with a hand and catches the bottle as it slips. "I have," he slurs, "internal heating." He lifts the bottle and takes a long swallow.

Duke ventures closer to him. "I should get Dwight to come and arrest you." Those six months weren't kind to Nathan's body. He wasn't carrying an excess of weight to begin with. His thighs are skinny. His ribs have shadows. His ankles and feet look bruised. Feet take a beating when you can't feel: Duke remembers that from when they were both kids. Duke leans on the bed next to Nathan's battered feet and thinks, _six months on the road_. Other bruises decorate Nathan's neck and shoulders and torso. Trust Nathan to come up with the idea of hiring himself out as a human punching bag. It's a wonder that his face looks as unscathed as it does.

He'd should have known that Nathan was taking his imminent demise way too calmly, earlier.

A pile of naked-assed Nathan sprawled on Duke's bed is very, very distracting.

"Can't arrest me," Nathan says smugly. "'M the police again." He leans over and pokes at a pile of clothing discarded inches from a slide off the edge of the bed next to him. Flicks his badge with his forefinger, bouncing it toward Duke. He plays his fingers over his handcuffs thoughtfully.

The black shape of his drawn gun is within arm's reach on the nightstand. Nathan may be crazy-suicidal in other ways, but he's not completely stupid. If anyone other than Duke had come through that door, he was still ready to react. Assuming he could hit the broad side of a _barn_ in his current state...

Duke grabs the badge and sets it by the gun, then the handcuffs, after a brief scuffle as Nathan tries to hang onto them with surprisingly more fervour than he does the bottle, but then that's nearly empty anyway. Duke picks up the bundle of clothes and dumps it into Nathan's lap. "I'm tired, and you're... I don't know, spoken for? Remind me, did you and Audrey ever actually _date?_ So whatever this is, if this is some kind of offer..."

"It is not an offer," Nathan declares, with exaggerated dignity. His fist bunches in the waistband of Duke's pants, his chin lifts and his eyes pin to Duke's, gleaming a little too liquidly in the dim light. "It is..." He fumbles whatever announcement he means to follow that with. Instead, he lurches up on the bed, twisting over onto his knees as his upper body rises, getting most of his leverage from hanging onto Duke. Duke hears fabric rip, and a button pops and rolls across the top of the comforter. Nathan almost falls into him, but somehow catches himself and bounces there, unsteady on the unstable surface of the mattress, weaving slowly on his knees. "You are going to fuck me. In as many ways as... as _either_ of us can think of. Right now. Tonight."

Duke pretty much clutches his head and says "What the hell?" He's not sure how many times he repeats that, but it's not getting old by the time Nathan decides not to wait any longer for actual processing to happen and lunges in, clamping his rough, nerveless, cast-iron mouth over Duke's, and delivers the most damaging approximation of a kiss Duke's ever been on the receiving end of. By the time he manages to extricate himself even a little bit from Nathan, he's on his back on the bed, and Nathan is straddling him, hard cock poking into Duke's belly. Drunkenness is an issue, but Nathan's heat and his passion are real, and Duke has been waiting for this a very long time. So maybe he doesn't struggle, and chooses instead to lift one knee to push upward between Nathan's parted legs.

The intimate touch of Nathan's hands shocks him as his first hint of reciprocation is taken as permission. Duke somehow pulls back enough sense to ask, "Why?"

"Don't want to die knowing I didn't," Nathan says.

"Didn't what?" Duke is staring, mesmerised, at the curve of Nathan's lips. He's a crap kisser, but he can't feel what he's doing, so it's not his fault. There are a great many intricate things that Nathan is _not_ crap at, evidenced by his crafty hobbies and proficiency with a firearm, which suggests that the key is practice, and it isn't as though he's had any opportunity to practice... Oh, _God_ , what could he do with _practice_?

It seems like he wants to practice _lots_.

"Didn't _anything_ ," Nathan says, and kisses him again, then slides down Duke's body with a frightening focus. Duke's pants edge their way off his hips at the clumsy tugs of Nathan's fingers, and then Nathan bows his head, leaving the thick fabric still caught around Duke's thighs.

There's a moment of realisation that oral sex with Nathan is going to be the definition of extreme oral sex because wait, God, shit, his _teeth_ , his _tongue_ \-- does he even know what he's doing? -- wet engulfing warmth, soft warm puffs of breath from his nose, which is already pushing into Duke's balls and did he just--? Okay: _no gag reflex._ Duke's brain quits on him for several minutes until Nathan comes up for air. He's gasping so much, Duke might suggest this isn't the safest activity for him, only he's gasping almost as much.

Duke's so ready that Nathan's mouth quitting the game is hell. Being left aching and desperate makes him want to punch the bastard. This was just some new game-- But Nathan's turning, first onto his knees, then dropping down on all fours--

"Never did that before. Never did anal sex, either," Nathan says thickly. "Not like you. I remember that Benny Bempton back in school, and was it... Shane something? I won't _feel_ feel it, but I'm pretty sure I'll get something. Easier than trying to perform the other way." He rolls a tub back to Duke between his wide-open knees. "In case. Did my best before you got here, though. Should've brought a hand mirror. Don't really know what I'm doing down there."

"Nathan, you idiot--" Duke's balls ache with the longing to take what's offered and his head aches with the certainty that if he does, Nathan hates him forever once he's sobered up. Maybe he hates him forever anyway. They've probably already done enough to earn it. Duke should take his opportunity while he can. Fuck Nathan -- it's only the chance of his lifetime. He groans instead, slips an arm around Nathan's midriff and hauls, trying to get him out of that position. "No. Jesus! Like there's any way at _all_ you'd be doing this sober? I don't need you hating me again. Knock it off, Nathan! I'm _tired_ , and I need to sleep." He glares at his cock. It is very much _not_ tired, and like this, there is no chance whatsoever that he sleeps.

Nathan struggles and falls backwards on top of him, and Duke howls as he gets a bony elbow in a nerve cluster.

"I'm going to die," Nathan growls. "Consider it a last request. Don't tell me I'm not _good_ _enough_ for you. I've seen your standards, and they're not that high."

"You're not going to die!" Duke yelps. "That's _your_ plan. Fucking crazy plan."

"Guard are behind it. _Dwight's_ behind it. Hey, what about _that_ guy? Some coup, huh? Town Cleaner to my job in six months." Nathan bares his teeth. He's feral and pissed, drunk and hurting, and he's not leaving any doubt that he _wants this_. "However many days or weeks or months I have left, I don't intend to waste them. You gonna help me or not?"

Duke splutters. "Is this a _bucket list,_ Nathan?"

" _Yes_. Whatever... one of those is." Somehow in the midst of all the chaotic tumble of limbs and words and emotions they stop and really look at each other. Nathan's drunk, but his eyes are hard, his driven focus real. Nathan's never been more serious and Duke thinks, suddenly, that the impulse came first and the liquid courage was poured on to help follow through. He's not the kind of drunk that doesn't know what's he's doing. And why, why, _why_ the hell is Duke fighting this when it's what he's wanted since he was fifteen and realised he could want other guys?

"...Okay," he gasps. The ache in his genitals eases a little as they rejoice. "Goddamn. Bend the fuck over again, you crazy fucking crazy..."

There aren't even words. Duke struggles, swearing, the rest of the way out of his pants, and groans with anticipation. He wants to do this _now_ , but the back of his brain is screaming at him to slow down. It's not just that he wants to savour this. He can't just do this quick and dirty as Nathan wants and imagine an afterward where they're _okay_. He murmurs some pretty words that only make Nathan snort. He strokes a hand over Nathan's side up to his shoulders in an attempt to approach intimacy more slowly -- Nathan knocks it away.

"Get _on_ with it." Nathan's voice is rough, as much with fear as alcohol, Duke suspects, beneath his brashness. "Come on. Come _on_ , Duke. Already did everything needed."

Duke swears and says _fuck it_ and accepts that he's going to fuck Nathan, who he's known and wanted _forever_ , just as fast and dirty as any encounter in the back of some shitty port bar when he's been three sheets to the wind himself. As he covers Nathan, lining them up with minimal niceties, he grabs at the lube and sends his fingers to a quick exploratory grope, hoping Nathan managed to do a decent job with the prep... He's fucking anal enough about everything else, and he's driven Duke crazy enough with this stunt already that having to _stop_ now would about slay him. Realisation his fingers are in Nathan's ass comes belatedly, as he's withdrawing them, and steals his breath away.

Nathan bends his head and his shoulders shiver as Duke wraps both arms around them, not to embrace, but bracing their bodies together. His brain whites out completely and he can't believe it's really happening as Nathan's ass admits him with a trace of reluctance. Duke has to pause there, heaving breath, and wait on the ability to _move_ or _think_ to return. Nathan's prep could've been a bit better, but it's okay, Duke can do this, can be confident he's not damaging Nathan by doing this. Nathan braces them both firmer and urges him to, "Do it," and it's uncertain if he knows there are a couple of inches already inside him, but Duke thrusts forward, very slow and even, while Nathan opens up and lets him in all the way.

Duke's really not used to him being that obliging.

Nathan groans. His body trembles under Duke.

"Can you feel that?" Duke asks, incredulously, his voice coming out an embarrassing squeak. He makes himself stop to hear the answer, because Nathan opting do this in his regular state might be a different matter entirely than if he could feel it.

The heat and pressure of Nathan is overwhelming, and holding back is not easy. 

"Of course not," Nathan snarls, unintentionally prodded in an old wound. "My Trouble didn't just get cured by your dick. But I know you're _in me_." Vocalizing it, his breathing turns even more shaky. "Can you... could you move? Don't have your wealth of experience, but I always figured movement to be an essential part of this?"

Duke figures mostly that's embarrassed Nathan hiding behind his snide mouth. But he's recovered a more amenable tone after Duke's gaff in mentioning his Trouble, so Duke does what he's told, easing back so that he can thrust forward again, starting to fuck Nathan slow and gentle. Nathan gives a shuddering gasp. His eyes are fixed on the movement of shadows that prove what Duke is doing to him, and they need -- damn it, he _could_ have hauled a mirror in here. Nathan even mentioned mirrors. Duke could have done that _today._ But not now. "I'll get you a mirror," Duke babbles, promising because he's buried in Nathan, who feels so damned good, but who doesn't feel at all, desperate for anything that helps him steal back scraps of arousal. "Next time you'll be able to see. You feel so good, Nathan. So good." A babbling idiot, he fucks Nathan, who snorts at his ridiculousness as his tongue runs all over the place. _Idiot_ to be doing this at all -- the morning is going to _suck_ \-- and idiot that he's doing this with so little grace or style when he's had fantasies about seducing Nathan for half his life.

Acute exhaustion, he tells himself. Stress of jumping into a supernatural exploding barn, then out into a fish tank, into psychiatric arrest, into a situation surrounded by fucking guns all carried by tattooed asshats _specifically marked out_ to kill him. 

He's coming hard before a few minutes are out, which would be a devastatingly embarrassing performance, but he's blaming that on the exhaustion as well, and anyway it seems like Nathan doesn't mind. Nathan's face is shiny and red, debauched and open in drunken joy. His cock is still hard and Duke falls between his thighs, raising a hand to push down on his chest, splaying him back while Duke licks and sucks. He looks up often, fucking Nathan with his eyes as much as his mouth. He _will_ prove that Nathan Wuornos can orgasm, Trouble be damned.

Proof hits him in the nose and Duke laughs victory as he draws his hand along Nathan's twitching shaft, encouraging it further. Maybe it's the sight of the stuff on Duke's face that causes Nathan to lose it so hard. Then again, so far as Duke knows, saying it's been _a while_ would be putting it mildly.

Nathan starts laughing, too, reaching out to wipe Duke's face with his fingers, and they sort of clutch each other and laugh together like _insane idiots_. This is not the evening of collapsing into a coma that Duke had envisaged, and this is not his fairytale-to-self of sleeping with Nathan, but he falls into a heap with this debauched, harsher Nathan, and he falls asleep huddled in against the other man's warmth and strong heartbeat.

***

Duke wakes up to a pair of handcuffs dangled in his face. Nathan isn't drunk any more, and if he's the slightest bit hungover can't tell anyway, and his morning greeting is, "Last night worked pretty good. We can do better."

Fucking a cop handcuffed to his bed works for Duke on so many levels it ought to be illegal. If Nathan wasn't doing this because he could die any day and he's so very afraid of having lived half a life when it comes to the end, it would be like all Duke's dreams coming true.

Nathan doesn't seem to need liquid courage again, and it seems skewed that he'd face death sober but had to get drunk for sex. But he doesn't mention that embarrassing first night again, so neither does Duke, and before they know it there are a handful more nights behind them and everything is marching ahead at a frightening speed.

There are a few things Duke fancied trying over the years that he could never get anyone to do. He guesses that's something everyone has, or maybe just every guy. Nathan does them. There are kinks Duke didn't know he had, and Nathan finds them. Nathan, generally, proves that Duke is much more lacking in imagination in the bedroom than he always considered himself to be. Over the next two weeks they re-enact just about everything available to two dudes from every hardcore porn he's seen in his life. _Some_ Duke shudders to think about. Duke starts hiding the suggestively shaped vegetables from the kitchen, knowing that if Nathan finds them they'll end up in someone's ass. Nathan somehow cracks his laptop passwords, gets on the internet, and makes a bunch of purchases in Duke's name using his credit card details. Over the next few weeks, 'specialist' items arrive at the _Cape Rouge,_ which Duke has to sign for while Nathan is hiding somewhere laughing his ass off.

By the time Lexie deWitt arrives in Haven, they must have ticked off most of the things from Nathan's bucket list. If there's anything left on there, Duke's terrified of it.

He's far more terrified, by now, of Audrey's return.

But Nathan doesn't die, because Audrey doesn't remember him, won't kill him, and doesn't want to love him -- _especially_ not if the only purpose of loving him is so she can kill him. Duke can't blame her for that. Not stupid, that girl.

The night of the Lexie fiasco, Nathan demands Duke use on him a set of BDSM restraints covered with hooks and spikes, which cannot be good for the guy who can't tell when he's hurting, when it's _too much_ , who by definition doesn't know what the limits of his body are. It's not the first freakshow request Duke's faced, but it's definitely the worst, and for the first time Duke says, _"No."_

"No" doesn't go down well. Duke realises, as Nathan charges out of the _Cape Rouge_ slamming doors, that if he's no longer going to die, there's no longer any need for him to expend so much effort on x-rated attempts to chase living.

He has no need anymore of _Duke_.

It's over. Duke calls himself an idiot, drinks himself stupid, and passes out in the galley.

He's woken at eight o'clock by Nathan, with two coffees in his hands and chastened apology writ all over his face. Nathan gets down on his knees to help pick Duke up from the floor, and in the sparkling morning light there's a softness in his gaze that makes Duke realise suddenly that he's ended up with something more here than he'd ever bargained on. The reprieve he'd never dared believe would happen has come to pass.

Nathan is _his_ : is _not dead_ and is _not going to die._

Nathan, who it turns out is a relentlessly kinky bastard who will push Duke in ways that scare him and stun him and drive him to distraction for the rest of their days together, but even so.

They have a future. The thought of that is insane, and unlooked-for, and _everything_.

***


	2. Pirate Trouble

**1.**

"Hey, Duke." It's 10.30AM, and upon hearing those flat, laconic tones, Duke looks up to find the hottest cop in Haven propping up his bar, doing something pornographic to a take-out cup of coffee with his mouth.

"I thought you went to work," Duke says, and gives him a reprimanding glower. "I cannot believe you brought that swill in here. You know I make better coffee than Missy's, and is it really legal to do that tongue thing with children present, _Officer_?"

"What tongue thing?" Nathan asks blankly, oblivious to how casually he exudes naughty things at Duke, leaning there in rumpled jeans and a faded flannel shirt with a badge and gun on his hip. He gives the coffee a shake. "Guessing it's stone cold, now. Picked it up hours ago on the way in."

Duke touches the cup experimentally. "You need to look after yourself. Let me get that for you, Officer Wuornos." He mirrors Nathan's sly smile and turns to the coffee-maker. The last time he saw Nathan was about two hours ago, in bed. They were both still naked at that point, and Nathan's handcuffs had been seeing some strictly non-regulation use. But they are well-behaved in public, Nathan maintaining a strict line between his professional identity and his relationship with Duke, rigid to the point of _frustration_ on both sides sometimes. Seeing him in work mode can be weird now, considering all the other conditions under which Duke has seen him. How can the same guy who's done the craziest things in his bed take the world so _seriously_ out of it? "No Lexie today? No Dwight? Or is this my 'unofficial' daily police harassment visit?"

"Lexie's in Camden re-qualifying Audrey to carry a firearm." Nathan pulls a face at that. "I'm not chasing down Troubles in your bar, but I _am_ working." His face twists into serious lines and his eyes add, _Sorry_. "You wouldn't happen to have seen Dougal O'Dea or Laurie Hammond, would you?"

"...Huh." Duke walks past Nathan to lean out over the counter at its nearest point to the door onto the terrace, where the noise of kids playing filters in from outside. He can't see if Duggie O'Dea or Laurie are among them, though. "I have no idea. A bunch of kids started hanging around here in the mornings. Think they're summering over in Haven, but local kids have started to hang with them. Could be those two are here."

Nathan leans over the counter and gets a shifty look in his eye that pulls Duke nearer. "We've had a few complaints. Local church mothers apparently don't think much of their kids spending time here. You know..." His eyes roll soberly along with his sardonic voice as he lists, "At a bar. Run by someone who associates with the Troubled. In the way that we associate..."

Duke swears. Maybe being a Crocker counters the stigma of his curse, but he supposes there are some prejudices it won't help him with. "This time in the morning I serve breakfasts and coffee, and the kids are always gone long before the place can get rowdy at night. They're not doing any harm." Though Wade chases them off when he sees them, Duke doesn't want to. It's probably a feature of Wade's nights getting later that the kids seem to be spending more and more time here, but they still do disappear by mid afternoon. "That whole terrace out there?" Duke points. "Pirate ship. When they get going, it's really something."

Nathan tips a shoulder and raises an eyebrow. "Probably dangerous, though, playing that close to the water."

Duke gives him a snort and a fresh coffee. "Don't you sip that red-hot," he warns, and raises an eyebrow as Nathan moves his hand to avoid letting their fingers brush at the hand-over. "And you're still the biggest killjoy in Haven."

"Mortally wounded," Nathan informs him. "I can send the kids off myself and keep your fun and easy-going reputation intact."

"Naw," Duke says, because it's not really fair, and Nathan wouldn't be here either if people weren't harping at him about it. Even if most are no longer actively calling for his blood, Nathan isn't in a very good position with the townsfolk, and he has to keep peace with them where he can. "I've got it." He wipes his hands on a tea towel and comes out from the counter. Nathan hangs back, sipping at his coffee in spite of the warning, damn it, looking stiff and official. It's a guise he seems to have pulled around him for this unplanned visit, but then they're both on work hours here.

The kids _are_ getting to be a little excessive as a presence, Duke admits to himself as he trips over a girl sat reading by the door, legs hunched up. He pokes his head outside, where high, shrill voices raised in perpetual semi-argument ring around the terrace and there's an epic battle being fought with invisible swords. Duke claps his hands loudly and whistles on his fingers, drawing their attention. "Hey. Guys. Laurie. Duggie." He spies the two Nathan mentioned. "Sorry, but we need to call it a day. Your parents want you home. Even sent Officer Wuornos over here to take you back."

A predictable note of complaint rises, making Duke sigh. "I know, I know. But it's not up to me, and it's not up to you. Your mothers in their infinite wisdom have spoken, and they scare me way too much to say 'no'."

"Nothing scares you, Mr Duke," asserts one of the kids, a grinning-faced urchin Duke doesn't know by name. "Right? Duggie told us you're a _real_ pirate. He lives on a real pirate ship, too," the kid tells his friends. "I've _seen_ it."

Duke chokes, but musters, "Any pirate would be scared of Duggie's mom. C'mon, kids. It'll keep for another day." He notices that Nathan has slunk behind him like a humourless shadow, beckoning to the boy and girl. If he had been around like that when Duke was the size of these sprogs, Duke realises he'd have found him as severe and forbidding a figure as the old Chief Wuornos, and that gives him a very peculiar moment. Coffee still in hand, Nathan leads the kids away, planting a few guiding pushes on the backs of their shoulders, proceeding carefully with hands that can't feel the pressure they apply. He doesn't say goodbye to Duke, but since they live in each others pocket these days, given his obvious preoccupation and the fact he'll no doubt be back at the _Rouge_ tonight, Duke's hardly offended by it.

The rest of the kids scatter as he turns around again, and he heads back inside. He sighs internally when he sees who else has just walked in and is very glad that Nathan took the kids around the terrace to his truck rather than back through the _Gull_. Jordan McKee is in Duke's bar; she who will gouge at and wound Nathan with every opportunity she's given. She's looking particularly spiky today, leather clinging to her body and eyes over-daubed with black shadows, and Duke distrusts her presence in every way.

"Duke." She rolls her head on her neck when she sees him and eyes him down her nose as she dismissively says, "Looking for the other Crocker."

Duke spreads his hands and answers irritably, "Well, he's not here." He's horribly conscious that they've started spending time together and really hopes Wade is not going to start dating Jordan.

She asks where he is with the not-so-patient tone of talking to someone very stupid, and Duke responds that he imagines Wade is asleep -- on a bench, or in a cell, although Nathan would probably have told him if that was the case, or even in a new B&B -- and he could turn up any time from now until about three o'clock, ready for the night-shift again.

"I'll wait," she says, and places a bill down on the counter for the world's most begrudgingly purchased coffee, then takes herself off into a corner.

The place starts to fill with the late breakfast-early lunch crowd, and Beryl and Tania report in to help at the bar. The lunchtime cooking shift arrive. It takes a while for Duke to register that he's being watched. He looks at Jordan first, but she's reading a newspaper. And it's not Jerry Anton in his own corner, half-pickled already and staring at the world through sullen eyes but at least having the sense to keep away from other customers, knowing Duke _will_ throw him out. Duke looks around, taking in faces known and unknown. On the floor by the door hunches one of the kids he'd thought departed earlier, although the girl is old enough that he's not going to make anything of it. She sees him looking back and shuffles uneasily as he comes out from behind the counter to stroll toward her.

She lifts her eyes as he approaches. It's not nervousness in them, but an odd fascination. She licks her lips. It... looks sensual. Sexual. She doesn't seem very mature, with no make-up, a cap of short and fluffy dark hair, scruffy jeans and t-shirt, but maybe she's older than he thought initially. She's still way too young to be crushing on him, and Nathan will mock him endlessly if this gets out. "Is your name _really_ Duke Crocker?"

"Yeah. It is." He hopes this isn't going to turn into a callback to the Rev's tune. Someone else who knows what the Crockers are and wants something from him. He hopes, abruptly, that she just has a crush that will make Nathan laugh and her family isn't Troubled.

"And you have a _pirate ship_?" Her eyes go big as saucers. Duke squints at her.

"Don't let Duggie's imagination run away with you. I live on a boat. That's all. It's a big boat, but see? No parrot, no wooden leg." He wriggles his feet in turn, then waggles his fingers. "No hook hand." He's honestly going to leave it there, leave her alone and steer well clear, because she creeps him out and he doesn't want any parents coming after him with a shotgun, even if he's very much already-taken and not-interested.

"No, you're a _pirate_ ," she says, though, as he's turning away, and there's something in her voice, in her insistence. "You're _him_. Exactly him. My perfect pirate..."

Duke is aware somewhere that he's about to back away from her, that this is _weird_ , and in Haven he knows full well what weird spells, and it's time to run. Even Jordan is rising from her seat nearby and taking a step toward them, having heard the conversation, her hand automatically going to the sleeve of a leather glove. She begins to demand, "What the hell do you think you're doing to hi--?"

But Duke doesn't really have chance to register the irony of Jordan McKee coming to his defence, as the girl's words reverberate around his head until they're just a confusing echo and he's blinking in puzzlement and can't remember their context, or why they should be clamouring for his attention when he's so obviously in the middle of other things. He turns and sees Jordan, his first mate, with cutlass in hand and a fierce expression on her face. Around him, his crew are mixed in among the patrons of the dingy port bar.

He spins back again, aware of movement behind him, but it's just another crewmate, and he laughs and raises his voice to reach the rest of them. "The marines are sniffing around. Time to leave this sorry little port of Haven. Take everything you can carry and flee this pit!"

Jordan raises a cry and hooks a purse from a customer with her cutlass. "Back to the _Rouge_!"

"But first the drink," Duke reminds, punctiliously. "Or this will be far too sober a week on the high seas."

Laughter of approval and a few shrieks of the opposite greet the declaration. As they strip the bar of stores, and Jerry strips the bar-wench of her shirt, Duke has a funny feeling that their actions offend him on some level. Jerry bundles the wench before him with one hand pawing her breasts and the other holding a blade across her belly, and there's a protest on the tip of Duke's tongue.

But it doesn't get as far as his lips. This is just another simple port tavern. The rum stocks on the _Rouge_ are low, and that's a mutiny brewing for sure if it's not amended sharply. He's Red Duke Crocker, the meanest sonuvabitch afloat. A wanted man, scourge of the seas, he takes what he wants and just let _anyone_ try to get in his way.

***

**2.**

"A pirate," Nathan repeats, feeling averse to letting the word quite touch the edges of his mouth. " _Again_?" Dwight does a double-take at that, except this isn't funny. The girl with a police jacket clutched tight over her torn clothes is testament to that. She's sniffing softly with one hand pressed over her mouth, succeeding so far in not outright unravelling in front of them. Nathan knows her, a little. She works for Duke. She also swears that while Duke didn't do this, he didn't stop it either, and he'd laughed.

"They were going to... going to..." She can't finish.

"Why didn't they?" Nathan asks, getting a glower from Dwight. But screw sensitive, what about _Duke_?

"He realised he could c-carry more drink if he wasn't grabbing at me!" Even if the experience terrified her, offended anger still outweighs any other emotion in that. "But it's the weirdest thing," she adds, and drops her voice because it's Haven, and she lives here, and she knows what happens here. "While it was going on, it was like I was someone else. Like I wasn't even literate, let alone doing a correspondence degree. I forgot half of who I am. Maybe I was even a little bit someone else. That's what's happened to Duke, isn't it?"

The mess he left of the _Gull_ all around them definitely indicates he wasn't himself. Duke, who'd only ever done crooked things before the restaurant fell into his hands, takes pride in his establishment. Yet apparently he did this himself. The dozen or so distressed civilians are his doing, as well. Damn it, Nathan was here less than an _hour ago_.

"Duke was still affected when he left?" Dwight asks the girl.

She hugs her arms around herself. "He hasn't come _back_."

"Where did he go?" Nathan adds.

"They cut across toward the harbour." She points.

"Thank you." Dwight herds Nathan toward the door and mutters, "We have to hope like hell that this wears off fast. Before they hit a populated area again."

Nathan eyes the direction Tania indicated. "He's heading for the _Cape Rouge_. We can't let him take her out to sea like this." He grimaces and adds, "There were kids in here earlier this morning, playing at pirates. One of them's probably Troubled. Laurie Hammond and Duggie O'Dea were there. We can start with them, get the names of the others. Although, first--"

"First we need to stop Duke and the rest before they run into anyone else. They've got too much of a head start on us." Dwight turns and gives orders into a radio, making Nathan feel like his hands and ear are bereft of a task. When he comes off the radio, Dwight continues talking as though the interruption never happened, while they crunch across the parking lot to Nathan's Bronco. "Our best chance to talk him down has got to be you."

Nathan grunts but he isn't going to dispute it, considering Duke was balls-deep in him this morning while they argued about whether or not they were going to bother with breakfast. He remembers how he left so easily, tossing a wave behind him over one shoulder, not even looking back. Even more casually at the _Gull_ , a few hours later. He really should have learned by now not to be too at-ease with the assumption he'll be able to come back to his lover after work and without the risk he'll be magically _turned into someone else instead_. "Get the coastguard out ready, just in case."

As they climb into the truck, Dwight's radio burps, and Nathan puts his foot down, listening with his face fixed, knowing how much every piece of damage... Jesus Christ, _Tania_... is going to sting Duke later. "Dwight," he says, staring straight front, where a smoke plume is rising into the air.

When they pull up by the marina, a small fire has been started. Nathan hunches close in to the Bronco, squinting as the smoke in the air chokes him and the sights and sounds of full-scale battle assault him. Something explodes. He sees broken glass strewn around and suspects the fire is a result of strong liquor and a struck spark near a pile of crates.

He picks Jordan out of the chaos first. It's not just the usual shock of seeing her that thuds into his unfeeling chest. She's by the fire, red mouth wide, dark hair loose and flying, lit by flame; clad in breeches and a sort of buckled leather overcoat that defies gravity with her movements. She looks like a demon. Her eyes meet his. There's no recognition in them, but he has to wonder if maybe some part of her remembers him, as she raises a flintlock pistol and fires.

It's a misfire -- a geniune one. Dwight, on the other side of the truck from him, on the radio again with his face stretched and eyes wide, yelling words Nathan can't hear, doesn't even flinch.

Other cops have got there before them, but they're... not cops anymore. Nathan recognises the faces, but the uniforms are like something out of a movie. Period Naval uniform. As for the other side... He'd heard _pirates_ and expected, well, he's not sure what he expected. But the enemy are grimy, violent, rough and ready examples of humanity wearing faces both too familiar and unfamiliar. These are no children's storybook pirates, and there's not a parrot or a wooden leg in sight.

Dwight swears and he turns. Captain Hendrickson stands with his empty hand raised to his ear, squinting distrustfully at his fingers. Dwight's wearing a Naval Captain's uniform. It looks good on him, except for the part where _what the fuck_? Nathan shakes his head hard. "Dwight! Are you still in there?"

"...Yes. We've got to try and keep... focus. Nathan." The captain... the _Chief_ , damn it, although that's no better. Half Nathan's instincts growl and insist that's _himself_... Nathan pushes the heel of his hand into his forehead. _Focus_.

When he drags his hand clear, he looks down, spreading his arms, staring at his own change of wardrobe. He scrapes his fingers over his lips and feels the roughness and the warmth, feels a fingernail catch. Pistol fire goes off for real, and Dwight doesn't flinch. They exchange a glance between them.

"We can't afford to get closer to this," Dwight grits. His face is sweating. It's evident he can feel the Trouble pushing at his mind, just like Nathan can. "There are too many people already sucked in."

It's probably dock workers who've been dragged into the fight on the other side from the pirates. At least, there seem to be a lot of disgruntled burly types... and _why_ , by God, is he standing around watching this? Nathan spends a confused few seconds being a Naval Lieutenant until he starts forward to join the battle and his hand scrapes against the top of a crate and all the oddity in that act of _feeling_ yanks him back to himself.

It's that moment he spies Duke, finally. If Jordan was a punch in the chest, this punch is ten times greater. He feels it, but if he wasn't -- incongruously, distractingly -- able to feel again, he thinks he'd still have felt it anyway.

Duke, clad in red and black, face severe and fierce and jubilant all at once, pale skin and dark beard, black hair loose and wild on the air as he swings about, wielding a curved sword and laughing. A line of gold hoops of varying sizes chases up the rim of one ear. He's wearing calf-high leather boots, skin-tight stained and worn breeches, an expansive leather overcoat with a red sash over a white shirt, and a scarf of deep red tied around his neck. It doesn't look like fancy dress or affectation, though. It looks like it's been lived in and slept in, and if Johnny Depp had exuded that much masculinity, _Pirates of the Caribbean_ would have been X rated.

Nathan's jaw drops and he can't even muster profanity. He experiences the unused-to discomfort of a constriction in his pants.

Dwight mutters something that sounds a lot like, "You've got to be fucking kidding me," except Dwight is professional to a fault, especially in a crisis, so it couldn't possibly have been that.

Pirate-Duke swings about and yells to his cronies, and as one they make a dash toward the _Rouge_. Nathan splutters all the more as he registers for the first time what Duke's home has become: a masted tall-ship sporting a red mainsail. Either she's been in the background the whole time like that and he somehow didn't notice or she only changed now as Duke turned his attention to her. Nathan vibrates as Dwight's hand tightens on his shoulder, frustration making him twitchy. They _can't_ approach. They have no choice but to let Duke go.

"Coast guard's coming," Dwight says tightly, and Nathan can see the ship, heading up the harbour from the south. "We can talk them down with a megaphone and a stretch of water between us. First we need to back off far enough I can get a message to that ship to pick us up. And to send for Lexie to come back to town, stat."

"Right." Nathan is still stunned by watching Duke -- Duke like _that_ \-- charging away from him, another reminder that he should never take what he has for granted in Haven.

While the coast guard manoeuvres in, Nathan and the restored cops deal with the injured. The intrusive presence of Lieutenant Wuornos fades from Nathan's brain as feeling fades from his body. He spends several minutes crouched pressing his hand over a flintlock pistol wound in a man's chest, waiting for the emergency services to arrive. The injury didn't resolve back into a regular bullet wound with the dissolution of the Trouble's influence. When EMS do get there, it's not far off the same time as the coast guard vessel finally reaches them. Dwight yells urgently to him as it closes in, gesturing with one hand, and Nathan starts sprinting.

They both leap aboard on the turn as the ship heads out to sea again, barely skimming the edge of the dock.

The coast guard officer, Jeff Anderson, is gruff and wide-eyed, staring at the _Rouge's_ masts and red sails in the distance as he says, "She's got a good head start, and she's faster than she should be."

"Just get her within shouting distance," Nathan says, equally gruffly. Duke should be satisfied -- he has delighted lately in making their relationship just as public as he can. Nathan hopes he won't have to get into descriptions of anything too intimate as he glowers at the megaphone thrust into his hand.

***

**3.**

The Navy are on their tail. Duke watched them making manoeuvres to pick up their officers landside, but now they're coming fast. He shouts orders for his crew and readies the _Rouge_ for battle, but once they achieve a certain distance the chasing ship puzzles him by slowing and holding that distance. Duke narrows his eyes as the figure of one of the officers perches on the edge of the prow, lifting a megaphone. The slim lines indicate it's not the big commanding officer, even without the lieutenant's uniform to help him out, and Duke's somewhat offended they'd delegate communicating with him to an _underling_.

He remembers spying the Lieutenant in the skirmish at the port. Timid to the action, but he's a fine featured fellow, a man with smart, angry eyes. Duke grins broadly at being told in clipped tones, "Stand down, Duke," like this fellow considers he has every business harrying him to obey like a pissed-off wife. Cupping his hands in front of his mouth, he returns, "Identify yourself, Navy man!"

That annoys his opposite number all the more, judging by the sharp silence and stiff body language before he raises the megaphone again. "Duke, it's Nathan. Nathan Wuornos. Try to remember. We've known each other--"

The Lieutenant continues, to outline how they've known each other since they were kids, which is clearly not true and Duke's not really listening. He's planning mischief. He steps back to murmur to Jordan, who palms her stolen pistol quietly. The guns are notoriously unreliable and it's unlikely she can score a kill shot from here. The Lieutenant's position is precarious, though; careless for a seaman in a fashion that makes Duke wonder if he's new aboard a ship, which would make little sense at his age. Unless he's been sent to the Navy for punishment, some lily-livered rich man's son. That thought makes Duke grin. They wait on the surge and swell of the waves, judging the agitated shifting of Lieutenant Wuornos' feet. Jordan picks her moment well. Her aim is off -- the bullet shoots past Wuornos' ear and visibly rocks the body of the big captain hulking behind him -- but the result is better than Duke could have anticipated. Wuornos is already reeling, balance disturbed by the close miss, when the Captain staggers and grasps a hand against his shoulder. The Lieutenant overbalances and plops into the water like a dream.

"Bring us around!" Duke orders. His stomach surges oddly. The thought jabs at him, _They'd better pick him up before he drowns_. His ship prepares to do battle.

But oddly, the Navy don't fight. The captain, face clenched and furious, but seeming none the worse for the shot, leans over the side. Wuornos is in the water, struggling to keep his head above the surface. Lucky the bastard can swim, Duke thinks, with inexplicable relief. Equally inexplicably, Wuornos strokes towards the _Rouge_ , rather than his own vessel. He yells something back to his captain. Duke doesn't catch those words, but he hears the captain's reply of, " _We'll come back with her_." Then the Navy ship is retreating, leaving their man to the line thrown out by Jordan.

Duke finds almost as much mirth in the Naval retreat as the sorry sight of Lieutenant Wuornos, as Jerry and Jordan drag him up out of the sea. Disarmed, he makes a few token lunges at his rescuers, but he's gasping and half-drowned, and they easily pin him and tie his arms.

His uniform is wet and intrinsically annoying, but also very fetching, and his eyes are angry but very blue, his face chiselled and also angry. The clinging cloth exposes the trim contours of his body. He is, in fact, a rather beautiful man, and Duke, like a magpie, collects beautiful things. Also like a magpie, he sees something he wants and takes it. He feels the grin stretch over his whole face as he watches Wuornos' first few lurching steps aboard his ship. "Well, now, Lieutenant Wuornos. You are a find and that's for certain." He steps in and reaches out, clamping his fingers to the other man's chin and lifting his jaw. Wuornos' throat convulses but all he does is dribble sea water over Duke's hand. He's sluggish and looks cowed already, and Duke has no difficulty thinking up things to do with him. It'll be more entertaining still if the Navy ship doesn't run away _too_ fast -- they can watch him debase their officer through their spyglasses.

"Bend him over and tie him to the mast," Duke yells, making sure the order carries around the whole crew. "We'll give him a warm 'welcome aboard'." He's answered by a few whoops of anticipation rising from those who're in the mood for buggery.

Wuornos swallows this time; more sea water, maybe, from the breathless gulp in his voice as he gasps, "Duke--" His eyes are hazy and he doesn't seem to have caught up, has no idea what's coming. Duke pats his cheek and pries open his mouth: Jordan slips a rag between his lips and pulls it into a tight knot at the base of his skull. Wuornos blinks and twists within their grip as they steer his stumbling steps. Grooves low on the wood catch the ropes as Jordan and Scurvy Al re-tie Wuornos' wrists to the mast. The position forces him to hunch, the side of his face pressed to the stained wood, back bowed. Wuornos angrily starts to slide down onto his knees, obviously taking that for the point. Jerry grabs his hips and hauls them back, leering as he wrestles with Wuornos' belt while grinding into his clothed ass. The Lieutenant makes a furious noise, which fills with new panic as he's exposed to mid-thigh.

Duke hops up on the side rail of the ship, dancing there a breathless moment before catching his balance. He cups his hands to his lips and hollers after the Navy vessel. "Hey! You're gonna miss the fun! Come back!" But they don't, and a few sharp whistles and energetic waves don't make any difference, so he terminates the discussion in a rude gesture before hopping down again.

He's annoyed to see Jerry groping Wuornos before he's even had his own shot, and kicks him out of the way. "Captain's privilege. Shove off." He draws his cutlass to underline the point. Jerry scurries away from him, and Duke turns back to Wuornos only to find him dropped to the deck and hugging up to the mast, bare ass pressed against the wooden boards. His eyes are wide in alarm. The noises he makes behind the gag are indecipherable. But the way he looks at Duke, _into_ Duke, it seems like he's frantically trying to tell him something. Which is weird, because Duke is the furthest thing from help represented here.

"Get up." It's a hell of a job getting him to do that. The guy's fiercely strong, aided by the space he's forced himself into and the leverage the ropes afford him even while they keep him restrained. Duke finally pushes his face close until they're nose-to-nose, massages Wuornos' cheeks with both thumbs, brushes a smudge of blood from his gagged lips, and tells him, silkily, that they can also find uses for him on his knees.

Wuornos doesn't exactly yield but some of the fire goes out of his resistance, and it's enough to get him pointed ass-upwards. Duke runs appreciative hands over taut muscles and Wuornos flinches like he's never been touched before. Duke slides fingers down the crease of his ass and Wuornos does more than flinch as a cursorily greased thumb is pressed into his hole. "That's an undignified noise for an officer to make." Laughter from his crew and Duke pushes his thumb deep and works it around. The territory is less tight than expected, and he swiftly figures Wuornos is ready enough after that for his purposes -- he isn't trying to be gentle, after all.

The Lieutenant bucks wildly while Duke lines up, but freezes with the shock when a hard thrust skewers him deep. Duke gives a long, satisfied exhalation at the welcoming heat and pressure. He supposes this _must_ be quite the moment from the other side of things: realising you've another man's cock in you, that it isn't going anywhere else anytime soon, and every struggle from now on is just bonus stimulation. He leans forward, scuffing the hair and easing back the chin of the man beneath him. Wuornos looks frantic behind the gag. Tension imbues every inch of his form. His tied hands claw against the mast, tendons standing rigid. But Duke is very, very happy with the state of the world, so he can spare a _little_ gentleness: still leaned forward, he brings a hand up beneath Wuornos' shirt to rub his belly soothingly, and presses his face against the other man's hot neck, shushing his complaints. Wuornos trembles but pushes back into the touch and even groans in a fashion almost suggestive of relief.

That's... kind of odd. Duke has done this innumerable times and he's _never_ had any victim reciprocate forced affections so readily... But _has_ he really done this _?_ He realises his memory fails to match the thought and he can't remember raping anyone before.

Suddenly _this_ is all kinds of familiar, though. The body against his, that face and those eyes. Duke, for a moment, feels a tremble arise in his own limbs.

He returns to himself, Red Duke Crocker, with his crew around him cheering him on, delighted by the reaction of the prissy Navy man. They're waiting for him to turn and use Wuornos rough and raw in reprisal. Instead, Duke rocks slowly, left unsure by his moment of double-vision, though either way, he knows his restraint isn't going to last long. Wuornos whimpers behind the gag, meeting each thrust like it might kill him, even if something in Duke is telling him he's done this before; that _they_ have.

He gets rougher as the crew's reactions feed back into his actions, but even then, the responses he gains rouse his suspicions enough to double-check the ropes. He finds Wuornos' wrists still secured to the mast, but even the innocent touch of running his hands along bare arms brings shivers like the Lieutenant can hardly stand it.

The rest of Wuornos' body lurches forward, pulling Duke out of him. It's not certain that's deliberate -- more like his legs are shuddering too much to hold his weight. Duke _tsks_ anyway, re-catches bony hips and pulls them back. He squeezes with his thumbs to spread Wuornos' ass cheeks and nestles his cock home again.

The noise that draws from the captive officer causes Jordan to laugh and toss over a tasteless joke... and Wuornos buries his face against the rounded wood of the mast as if he can hide from the audience that way.

Abruptly, Duke is troubled. Not by the tight heat of the body that he's bucking into with increasing force, far too good to stop now, but because he chose to do this in full view of his crew with the intent to humiliate.

The desperate guilt sparked by that thought makes him finish faster than he'd like, angry with himself and the jeering voices, screwing his dick hard to make himself come as Wuornos pushes back like he's begging for it, audience be damned. Duke opts not to mock him, but his crew are doing so anyway.

He pulls out, regretting it and damning himself, hanging onto the waist of his victim, whose legs are trying to fold beneath both of them. He's not sure what happened here. He slides his hand over Wuornos' hip in an apologetic caress, exciting a shudder. It's impossible not to notice, rearranging Wuornos' pants and refastening his belt, that the Lieutenant came hard along with him. A ripple of disenchantment goes through the crew as they realise they aren't getting a look in, and Duke's anger spikes sharper. He stands up and wrenches the ropes around the mast loose enough to allow Wuornos to stand, too, curling a supporting hand around him to help, because he moves as though it hurts. That _shouldn't_ be surprising.

It's not surprising that he should be shaken or angry after the swift demotion from lawman to fuck-toy, only that _Duke_ is feeling the same way.

 _Damn it_. He's Red Duke Crocker. He's done things so despicable... well, apparently so despicable he can't even remember them. But he's damned sure he's done them.

So _why_ should he be so terrified by this Navy Lieutenant, when he's fucked a dozen men unwilling before, as if by this act he's somehow committed an unforgivable crime?

***

**4.**

Nathan's lost all sense of control.

He's used to _control_. Not being able to feel anything might not be fun, kind of the definition of the opposite, but it does mean he's seldom physically at the whims of what his body is experiencing. Now, with the painful sawing of the ropes at his wrists losing the battle for his attention against the spike of Duke's invasion, he feels more like a rag in the wind than a thinking consciousness.

Was being fucked always like this, all the times he couldn't feel it? Nathan never _did_ this before he was numb, and the horrible thought hits him that maybe he really doesn't _like_ \-- but no. Duke's barely bothered with any preparation, and this would be much worse if he wasn't still somewhat stretched and slick from their fooling around that morning. Only a few hours ago, when much this same thing was an act of affection.

He pulls his hands against the ropes and makes more furious, unintelligible noise. He's beyond the point where he's attempting to put words into it, to even make the noise a desperate attempt at communication. Now it's just outrage and fear. It's too much, and there are too many people there, and if they're all going to get a turn after Duke is done with him--

No. Just _no_. He's been seeking experiences, but _not_ that kind.

Nathan can't help thinking back to persuading Duke to play a kidnap scenario, only for Duke to keep breaking the mood by asking if they could just pack it in and act like normal people again. He asked for this, or something like this. Wanted, at least, for Duke to take away his control. Sometimes it's wearying, feeling like he's always the one leading everything, even when he's tied down or on his knees.

" _Just go for it and do what you want to me._ "

" _What if I want to untie you and feed you some really good wine and a candle-lit dinner?_ "

The scenario had died a death on those notes.

Nathan thought enough times about what it might be like, if he were able to feel Duke. Well, now, he's got his wish there, too, curling fingers down over his jaw, hard caresses of ownership.

The double punch of the loss of control and the resurgence of sensation is too much. The public element is horrifying. Nathan's always been hyper-aware that no matter what he does behind closed doors, for his job he has to maintain respectability. He's never been an exhibitionist. Duke has more stake in that area than he does -- he's been lucky Duke never named any kinks like that he'd be obliged to fulfil. Less lucky now, as Duke pours fire down his back and into the core of him.

But his body's regained the give from that morning, and the fire in his ass is... changing in character, at last. It's no less _too much_ , but he finds that he wants it all the same. From nothing to this in less than ten minutes feels like it could break him, but he grips his hands on the ropes and the mast with an automatic shift in purpose and pushes into Duke's proprietary hand that's crept down to cradle his jaw, and pushes back onto Duke. Like the madman he must be. He suspects he can't take it. He still wants to try. He falls, gets dragged up. Duke re-enters him and he feels like he's going to fall again, except Duke's got him jammed between his own body and the mast; he has to stay put. He hides his face from the crowds and pretends they're alone, pretends it's affection that curls Duke over his back, because if this is the only chance he'll ever have to feel Duke…

He's made an art of out making the most of things. If this is all he gets, if this is something he can't avoid anyway, then he'll take it. He groans into the gag, and shoves back, pushing Duke deeper.

Orgasm will kill him, he thinks. But maybe Duke understands that, all of a sudden riding harder and faster. If he's fast enough, Nathan might survive.

If he'll survive ten strangers after that is another matter. It slams through him, and maybe it's the threat like a shower of ice inside his brain that chills the mix enough that he makes it out intact. As Nathan realises that Duke _finishing_ only opens up the way for the next to start.

But Duke's holding him up, fastening his pants, loosening the ropes from the mast and hauling him back onto unsteady feet, arms around his waist. Nathan totters against him. He might pass out. The rush of relief as Duke growls at the crew that they're not getting him fills his head with white noise.

Then the rush is real, balance tipping and he reels across the deck, shoved heavily from Duke's arms like something used and unwanted. _Duke_ is turning on his heel, stalking away without explanation, and the glimpse Nathan catches of his face...

He lands in Jordan's arms instead, almost knocking her flying. His hands aren't particularly securely tied anymore, after Duke dragged him clear of the mast, and he's stronger than she is. He could resist, except there's no resistance in his body at the moment. Jordan swears and heaves on his underarms. Another crewmember grabs him by the belt and tries to help hold him up.

"Guess we just stash him below for now," Jordan says disgustedly, her eyes rolling as she juggles his weight so she can dig her fingers into Nathan's face, a strange parody of Duke's touch. Funny how they should both be here for him to feel them now, the both of them the only lovers he's had while numb. "Come _on._ Like we didn't notice you enjoyed that? So don't pretend you can't walk, damn you."

Nathan can't walk. Jordan and the unknown man -- tourist? -- re-tie Nathan, drag him below decks with liberal swearing, and throw him into a cell. His legs are shaking so much he hasn't been able to keep his feet under him all the way down, and he doesn't even bother trying to stay upright when they let go.

He lands face-down and dimly listens to them leave.

 _Feeling_ is too much even when he's just lying on the hard, damp, cold wooden floor with the aftermath of what Duke did. The Lieutenant is still there, in the back of his head, and sensation isn't strange to _him_ , though these sensations are, but the Lieutenant isn't any help to him in other ways, panicking morass of injured pride and damaged masculinity. Nathan, on the other hand, doesn't have a lot of pride remaining and knows he doesn't deserve any breaks. On balance, the Lieutenant's persona has become easier to ignore than earlier.

Bit by bit, he starts to piece himself back together on the floor of the cell. To dig out _self_ from overwhelming sensation, to bolster it with the dogged beginnings of a fast-rising anger.

...Nathan's _furious_. _Hurting_ , he's not used to. The dunking started it, with the sea's terrible cold, but the ropes and Duke piled on worse. The best he _can_ do is try to channel the blinding result into anger.

Why did Duke have to get turned into a _pirate_? Not even a cartoon pirate, this time, but a real, murdering, raping, cut-throat bastard.

Nathan certainly didn't come aboard anticipating to be fucked in public like some prize. When he was in the water, close enough to this Trouble to _feel_ , to feel the persona of the Lieutenant at the edges of him but still be _himself_ , he'd realised _feeling_ was a discrepancy so huge he could use that. He could remain himself and work on Duke from within to provide damage control, maybe prevent another attack like at the _Gull_.

Some plan that had been.

At least it was Duke and not the aggressive barfly; and at least it was _Nathan_ and not... well, at least he's already fucking Duke, he supposes is the point. And what they do, often enough, isn't far different. But as for the _audience_ , and the threat of everyone else getting a try--

He's still shaking. He can _feel_ his limbs shaking. He isn't okay with this, and has yet to figure out how mitigating a circumstance it is that he's already fucking Duke, but if it had happened to Dwight, or another of his officers -- If Duke hadn't changed his mind at the last--

Best he doesn't go there.

In the moment right before Duke left, Nathan had seen his eyes and... that was _Duke_. Not the other, not the _pirate_. It was Duke enough, at least, to know that Nathan wasn't for sharing. At least that nightmare scene got them as far as that.

'Relief' isn't really an adequate word.

Feeling is -- is -- is something he can't remain impartial to, can't control at _all_ like this, new-returned and raw. It's not the ally he took it for, or -- well, he supposes he's still _himself_ ,for the most part, and should be glad of that much, but it's certainly an ally with drawbacks. Nathan also remembers Jordan touching people on deck a few times, unremarked, and can only imagine that their own Troubles were eliminated because they would get in the way of the roles they're acting out.

It does give him more than he'd usually have to work with in tackling the knots around his wrists. Behind him, he can't see them, so normally he'd be screw... out of luck. He manages to slip them off in about five minutes and drags the gag out of his mouth. He makes use of the bucket in the corner of the cell, and tries in vain to rearrange his pants around the sorest parts of his anatomy to make himself more comfortable.

Then he starts work on finding a way out of his cell. Which is categorically not a cell, because the _Cape Rouge_ doesn't have any, but it looks like a cell, a barred box taking up most of a room, and the bars feel solid beneath his hands. He's not hallucinating it. If he is, it's an hallucination layered over a real wall.

In the same way, the rest of Duke's crew are just regular Haven citizens and tourists, although the thought of Jordan makes Nathan cringe. Whoever's Trouble is doing this, they've found a role in it for him all too easily, but that grudge isn't helpful for narrowing any suspect pool.

Maybe it's the anger powering him. Maybe pain is too much a novelty to hold him back, or he's even starting to revel in the sensations, mixed as they are. Or maybe the cell is too much imagination and too little substance, when he's not fully caught up in the fabrication, after all. He pries bolts apart with his bare hands until his fingers are bleeding, his arms ache, and he's made a big enough hole to squeeze through. A patch of white-and-blue uniform and a scrape of skin get claimed by a sharp edge. Nathan hesitates, staring at the cloth scrap, because he knows it should be dark green flannel, but it stays stubbornly white.

He shoves it in his pocket with a grimace.

He's a lot less patient than he used to be, and even less than that today, so his decision to wait for Duke to come to him, rather than go stumbling blindly about the transformed _Cape Rouge_ , wouldn't likely have lasted longer than five minutes. But Nathan's already a little surprised it's taken Duke this long, and the decision pays off fast.

"Hel _lo_ ," Duke coos, stalking through the main door in the pirate get-up. It's insane how well black leather and red cotton suit him. All those buttons and straps look like fetish wear, and he's distracted fumbling at a few of those now. "Ready for another jolly rogering, Lieutenant Wuor--"

" _Bastard_ ," Nathan says, and hits him. It's not exactly planned, but even if Duke's not in control of himself and it's not his fault, he still just forced Nathan in front of a bunch of strangers, and worse, townsfolk who might recognise him and remember it. And _Jordan_. With that behind him, it feels amazingly good to split his knuckles against Duke's teeth. Duke's eyes remain brown, so Nathan definitely isn't the only one who's shed his Trouble.

Duke falls and Nathan kicks shut the door. Certain movements aren't doing his body any favours at the moment, and that's one of them. Duke takes advantage of his agonised distraction to haul him down to the floor, and they tussle. Duke has a lot fewer stops on him than usual, and Nathan isn't giving any ground either. It's probably just as well their short, brutal movements transform so quickly in focus.

Even amongst the rest, it's still impossible to ignore that this fierce kiss is the first time he's _felt_ Duke's kiss. He can't shut his eyes and lose himself to sensation because after three years numb, his world no longer _works_ that way. Using the toilet bucket almost left him a sobbing mess, so Duke's ability to overwhelm his oversensitized body isn't exactly unique, but still...

Almost drowned below the unfamiliar _feel_ , the crushing softness of Duke's lips against him, Nathan tastes blood and rum overlying all the other subtler things that normally make up his experience of kissing Duke. They grope at each other and Duke manages to get both their pants undone and shoved down far enough that they can jerk against each other. Nathan is intensely aware of Duke's cock sliding skin-to-skin against his own. He moans into Duke's mouth, who grabs his ass and pulls him even closer. They grind together, skin hot and sticky, the sensation amazing, the space between them nonexistent; still half-fighting, now Nathan on top, now Duke.

"Lieutenant Wuornos..." Duke gasps, and Nathan rolls them over again angrily, grabs his collar and growls the correction: " _Nathan_."

"Who the hell _are_ you?" Definitely not what he's looking to hear. Nathan head-butts Duke, then while he's dazed, kisses him like he's Sleeping Beauty and this is the sole chance to wake him up from the spell.

Nathan finally pulls back and rasps, "Remember me?" He has no idea what he'll do if that didn't work. Duke's eyes are still spacey. The tangle of their lower bodies is a sticky mess, mostly courtesy of Nathan. Duke's still hard, poking into his stomach.

"I..." Maybe Duke changes his answer because he sees he's going to get hit again. His confusion may well be the only reason Nathan gets away with it. "I _know_ you. Why don't my memories make sense?"

 _Know_ could mean any number of things. Like the excruciatingly intimate way he just had Nathan in front of a bunch of his cronies. Nathan rolls onto his knees, tugging at his pants, one hand still twisted in Duke's collar. "You're _not_ a pirate." He'll be heard this time, goddamn it, no gag to silence his voice. "You sacked your own bar." Duke will be pissed about that, later. But then he's taken more than just supplies from the _Gull_ that were already his to begin with. "Something _put_ us in these roles. This isn't us." Lieutenant Wuornos would really like to throttle the Red Duke right now. Nathan has to remove his hand to avoid temptation.

"You're no marine," Duke says dangerously.

"I'm a cop. Damn it, Duke, try to remember! You've got to _fight_ this!" But Duke was at the centre, and whatever this is, it has its claws in him deep. His eyes harden again. He gathers his feet under him. A hand on Nathan's shoulder shoves him down while it helps Duke stand.

Fingers clenched in Nathan's collar forcibly bow his head. Duke trembles with barely-contained violence. "I'm Red Duke Crocker," he hisses. "They call me that because I paint the seas red with blood. What the hell are you trying to do to me?"

Nathan has to think fast. He might be able to take Duke out, but the rest of the crew, just as much under the influence of this fantasy, are a shout away. That's no chance at all. Whatever he does next, if he doesn't gauge it right, Duke could kill him, unknowing... and might not understand what he's done until this Trouble's run its course. That humiliating scene on deck could be the last image Haven remembers of Nathan Wuornos, and he shudders to think what that circumstance would do to Duke.

Unless... unless Nathan can turn this around. After all, he's been practicing for weeks. If this is the only lever he has to use, then he'll use it.

Nathan swallows fury and pride, and in rapid succession leans in and swallows Duke's cock, taking him in as deep as he can, which is a lot more difficult now he can feel it. Duke draws a long, sharp breath, and something else sharp is suddenly pressed to Nathan's cheekbone. "If you're planning to bite down or some other mischief..." warns the pirate version of his lover. Nathan responds with a damp grunt of protest and struggles to take Duke that little bit deeper. He vibrates his throat around Duke's cock, and the point against his cheek retreats. He presses his fingers into Duke's hips and doesn't fight Duke's as they catch in his hair, pulling back then pushing forward again, forcing Nathan to make desperate adjustments as his mouth is fucked with increasing depth and speed.

He struggles to breathe and tries not to gag. Kissing didn't work: Nathan will have to go one better. He closes his eyes and tightens his fingers on Duke's hips and sets to work doing what he can. Because he _can't_ fight the whole ship alone, when he daren't hurt anyone aboard it, when they have _swords_ and are driven by a false brutality he can't hope to match. But, _damn it_ , Duke's still in there. Like Dwight said, Nathan stands a chance of reaching Duke the best, and he'll earn his trust on his knees if he has to. Pirate-Duke's memories are compromised, but he remembers something, and Nathan has had demonstration already of which circumstances can shake loose those memories.

Things changed in the middle of that nightmare on deck. Duke got something of what Nathan had been trying to tell him with his eyes and his body while his mouth was silenced. Enough to doubt. Enough that pirate-Duke is no longer totally sure of his role.

Sooner or later, he has to _remember_.

***

**5.**

Duke expected his crew might require more explanation for his return to the deck with the Navy man unshackled and trailing him like a pissed-off shadow. They don't. Jordan sneers, "As if no-one could have predicted _that_ deal," and draws laughs and nudges from the rest. Which has the situation dead to rights at the same time as missing _everything_.

Angry mortification fills Wuornos' expression and he automatically steps closer to Duke. The familiarity and solidarity aren't due, and it should be funny but instead wakes a strong impression that Duke's forgotten something important. The muscles of Wuornos' jaw tighten, emphasizing the bruises around his swollen lips and making him look even more debauched. Duke coughs and swallows his laugh behind his hand. What they've been doing is beyond obvious. Wuornos glares like he still wants to take Duke's head off, whatever his pretty mouth says or does. Point of fact, Duke was half expecting bite marks on his dick, earlier, but those are the kind of risks a pirate takes if the reward is worth it.

Right now, Wuornos' pretty mouth rasps, "Half of them are only going to find this more _funny_ when we're all back to normal." He visibly forces his shoulders to drop and his fists to unclench.

Something at the back of his eyes appeals silently for help and Duke grinningly grips the Navy man's shoulder, shaking him expansively as he spins around to encompass all his crew, almost rocking Wuornos off his feet. "A new crewmember!" he announces. "Well, more or less."

"Is he keeping that uniform while he's on this ship?" Jordan asks caustically.

"That... might be the less part," Duke allows, eying Wuornos side-on.

"I'm not wearing a damn uniform," he growls back.

Duke offers a shrug around the crew with a questioning open hand. "No uniform that I can see," he states mildly. They laugh, and Duke tips a salute to Wuornos and his imaginary outfit, though he's pretty sure that wasn't meant to be a joke.

The laughter's more _with_ him than _at_ him than a moment ago: Wuornos darts his blue eyes around and he maybe relaxes a fraction of his tension. Duke smacks an impulsive kiss haphazardly onto the edge of one eye, as good as claiming him before everyone, then puts him from his thoughts along with all the promise and problems he represents, and goes to spend a while taking care of his ship.

Soon it will be dark. Duke doesn't expect the Navy will be back or at least making a move before dawn, but as always he sets the watches and readies the crew with a mind that they might have to wake up fighting. They're still navigating through shipping lanes, so they might also run across something interesting. It would be a shame to waste opportunities for plunder. He's not going to say no to a rich prize just because the Navy are on their tail.

Once or twice during the hours that follow, he looks for Wuornos and finds him deep in some task alongside the crew. He supposes that in the same position, he'd be wanting to show himself ready and useful, too, or else just trying to bury himself in distraction. Duke is still not sure what game the officer is playing, but certainly Wuornos is a better worker than the ship's boy, who Duke trips over hunched under a shore-boat reading a book. He curses the kid and whoever wasted their time teaching the kid to read as he kicks him back to the nearest task.

When the last of the light is fading, Duke climbs up the rigging to where Wuornos has chosen to make a solitary perch. He looks tired and strained and Duke's approach doesn't necessarily help with that. The bruises on his jaw have darkened, though the swollen lips have mostly subsided. "She's some ship. The _Cape Rouge_ ," Wuornos says, with a wry sort of amusement and... frustration, maybe.

"The finest in all the seas, and don't forget it." Duke tips his head back, looking up. His signature blood red sail billows above them. He balances next to Wuornos, picks up his hand, and kisses the backs of his fingers.

Wuornos' eye twitches, and he stares at a red stain transferred from his battered fingers to Duke's, ignoring the gesture in favour of the blemish. "Do you ever wonder why everything comes back to blood?"

Duke swings across the ropes to straddle him, resting a hand over Wuornos' crotch. He has no patience for wooing when it doesn't get him what he wants. He tried. He's Red Duke Crocker. If he wants, he takes, and he wants Lieutenant Wuornos. So what if he's had him twice today already? Hours have passed since then, and he still hasn't had him the way he wants, completely and without watching eyes. His body is ready; he can feel the rising heat in his loins, and... well, now, he thinks he just might. To hell with the unease trying to coil within him. He applies pressure enough with his palm to make Wuornos breathe harshly and his hips twitch and yearn forward. Duke catches the ropes to anchor them both in place.

"You're not a prisoner," he says in Wuornos' ear. "Didn't I let you loose?"

"I let myself loose," Wuornos snaps, sweating.

"Come below with me." Duke gives him an extra squeeze. There now. He's offered the choice. He's not too sure what he'll do if Wuornos actually has the gall to say "no", but Wuornos searches his eyes from a matter of inches distance and nods jerkily, so no difficult answers are required.

They slide down to the deck. It's only a dozen feet and they probably had ears enough listening in on that curious exchange. The gossips among the crew will be spilling to Jordan how besotted he is with his newest prize within the hour. He'd worry about that if he cared.

He has his hands on Wuornos' ass almost from the moment they're out of sight in the belowdecks gloom, leaving behind the last strip of light in the sky and the lanterns on the deck. At least the ship's boy has managed to do something -- the lamps in Duke's quarters are burning, waiting for them.

"It's cold," Wuornos says, a lost sort of observation, as Duke hooks fingers into his shirt and runs them down the row of buttons in a smooth motion.

"Ships are cold," Duke says, peeling the garment aside. "Damp. You have to make your own warmth. You won't be cold long." He leans in and breathes out purposely over the other man's exposed chest, pushing the air out for as long as he can to let the warm breath linger. Wuornos groans and seals his hands against either side of Duke's head, clasping him there and shuddering like he couldn't bear it to stop. Duke jerks his head against the too-tight grip, moves his hands up to clasp Wuornos' face, matches his fingers to the bruises and grinds them deep. With his other hand he tickles a knife against the vulnerable underside of Wuornos' chin. "Why don't you show me some more of these reasons I should trust you."

Wuornos swallows and carefully moves the blade aside. "You don't need that."

"Prove it." Duke walks him backward to the bed, where he drops him on his back with a deft hook of one foot. He raises his brows in challenge, then crawls across to leave the knife beside the pillows. If Wuornos chooses to go for the weapon, that will tell him everything he needs to know. In the meantime, Duke focuses on the task of removing the rest of that troublesome uniform. The fabric is still slightly damp and resists being peeled clear. The toned body beneath it fights him readily, but not to avoid the attentions. Wuornos seems to be doing his best to lay hand on every reachable scrap of Duke's skin, clinging onto every contact like it's a miracle. Somehow, in the middle of it, he flips their position. "God. I just wish you were _you_ , right now, to appreciate this," he says as he slides battered fingers down Duke's chest and arches over him on the bed, bending his head to clean a smear of left-behind blood with his tongue.

Duke's sensibilities belatedly catch on to being offended by Wuornos on top, and he grunts and rolls them over. "Your place is under me. I'm captain here."

"Fuck off, Duke," Wuornos says levelly, though Duke's flattening him to the bed. Duke shoves a hand between his legs and introduces two fingers to his ass without anything but spit to ease the way, and Wuornos makes a noise of discomfort and rolls his head and shoulders up. He stares dismayed around the room's clutter of weapons and spoils. " _Now_ I'm regretting you don't have your collection of skin product."

"What?" Duke asks blankly, wriggling his fingers to see if he can get that first funny noise out of Wuornos again.

"Agh! _Cooking oil_ , Duke. Something. _Anything_."

Oh. He'll be sore from earlier; sorer tomorrow if Duke fucks him like this now. On the one hand, that's not Duke's problem. On the other hand, Wuornos is _his_ ; it'd be a shame to carelessly damage him. "I've got grease."

"Of course you do." He looks more resigned than charmed, but Duke scrambles to get it, also hooking a bottle of rum and popping the cork with his teeth. He spits it on the floor and wheels back around to the bed.

Wuornos, sprawled on his back, plants both hands over his face with a groan. Duke grins, wondering if he'd be letting him try this seduction, or whatever Wuornos thinks it is he's trying to do, if he was anything but completely transparent doing it. He gulps more rum and offers the bottle to his bedmate, who refuses with a twitch of disgust. "I need to keep my head clear."

"Oh, now. No-one _needs_ a clear head." Duke gulps from the bottle again and plants his lips forcefully, sharing a big mouthful, but most of it goes everywhere but down Wuornos' throat when the unexpected introduction causes a coughing fit. "You might regret not blurring the edges..."

Wuornos shakes his head irritably, trying to get back his breath, and Duke takes a last gulp before leaning down to rest the bottle on the floor. He reaches for the pot of grease he tossed down on the covers, flipping the lid, scooping a thick dab of the contents, then rolling it aside. He re-introduces his fingers to Wuornos' ass, crawls up the other man's body and kisses him while his fingers continue their work. Wuornos grabs at him with sweating hands, face full of strain, breathing in quick rasps, incoherent. An erection digs into Duke's hip. Duke flexes to crouch above him and drags on his shoulder. "Turn over."

There are old bullet scars on Wuornos' back. They make it look like either he was shot by one of his own, or he was running away. Maybe that's why he's still only a lieutenant in his thirties. Duke touches them briefly and then loses interest. His dick is hard and yearning. He eases it into Wuornos, at fucking last, and this time, he promises himself he'll get to enjoy it.

This close, it's impossible to miss the heaving rise and fall of the other man's chest, that moves both of them, or the wildly thudding heartbeat that echoes back into Duke. It feels like Wuornos' body is in a state of panic, and that's confusing. Does he want this or not? Duke thrusts harder and Wuornos clutches his arm over Duke's arm around his midriff, and that feels like a _yes_ , even while he's burying his face in the bedclothes to muffle his discomforted sounds.

Duke shakes his head and thinks to hell with it. If his partner's heart isn't in this he'll find out soon enough.

That night he purposely crosses lines and pushes limits. Wuornos shudders and cries out beneath him, hardly a stoic, but all the same seems to have the capacity to absorb every demand Duke makes on his body. It's not that he's cowed -- Duke can _see_ the fight in him, in the down moments Duke allows him, when his desperation and distraction clear enough to see it, but it's not for this.

Wuornos never makes a try for the knife, and his lips are still just as welcoming to Duke's kisses before they finally drift spent into sleep as when they'd begun. Duke doesn't understand it, but whatever this is, it clearly isn't a lie.

*** 

**6.**

Duke gets up in the night and walks his ship. That's always been true, and if he does that with a near-empty vessel at dock, then he's definitely going to do it on a pirate ship crewed by seventeen souls, at sail on a dark and unpredictable sea. Nathan's already awake before he feels the hand scruff through his hair, almost fondly, almost like Duke retains more memory in his half-asleep haze, and then he's gone from the cabin, leaving Nathan alone.

If it were that kind of ruse, this would be the chance he's been waiting for. There's still a knife beneath the edge of Duke's pillow -- safe enough there, and Duke doesn't comprehend that he couldn't be safer. Nathan might as well use it on himself as kill Duke. His goal here is to bring Duke back safely, along with the rest of the people caught up in this. Trust is the _point_ , their lives are the _point_ , so Nathan stretches out into the pool of warmth where Duke's been lying, presses his nose into his scent, and pretends there's nothing wrong. Nathan hasn't been sleeping very well thus far, too-raw senses wide open and every unfamiliar feeling clamouring for his attention, but after that he doesn't remember Duke the Pirate getting back into bed.

Nathan has never had to feel what they do, either while they're doing it or the day following, but he wakes up with his body shouting about every rough act of last night and with the distinct awareness he'll have to take the initiative and turn this around by morning light. At least, he will if he wants to make it through the morning without this turning back into what he's been trying to avoid since that brutal initiation against the mast.

Also, he really needs to use the head. He's not used to that sensation, either. He stumbles off and only just makes it in time. When he returns, it's to find Duke sitting up looking irked. Internally, he sighs.

He picks up the grease from the floor as his foot nudges it. For all he knows it really is a pot of face cream in the real world. He starts to unfasten his pants to climb back into bed with Duke. In some corner of him, the persona of Lieutenant Wuornos is a shivering, angry mass of humiliation and broken pride, but Nathan tries to ignore the Lieutenant's idiotic budding attachment fantasy. He doesn't need that to love Duke. He _needs_ to keep his lover from becoming a monster in ways that can't be fixed after this Trouble comes to an end.

The train of thought sparks another inspiration. He pushes the sheets aside to straddle Duke, who's still sleepy enough to let him, and kisses his nose (it's large, and in the way), and then his lips, like it's not goddamn pirate Duke at all, and even though it's very distracting to be able to feel his knees brushing against Duke's hips, he manages to hold onto the thread of his thoughts and murmurs in a low voice: "I think we're in a novel." He'd thought it more likely to be popular culture based than an actual historical reconstruction, but what if... if what's happening between him and Duke isn't a consequence of their pre-existing relationship, but an integral part of this Troubled reality? "Some florid rape-as-romance pirate fantasy."

"Hunh," Duke grunts. He looks confused. Nathan guides him down onto his back and gets briefly distracted playing with his hair, because there's a lot of it, all fluffy at the ends and a bit greasy at the scalp, and he can't usually _feel_ those black strands sliding through his fingers. There's a lot that's amazing about that. Nathan doesn't think that this Duke is comfortable with their respective positions, but the man he knows is locked-down inside there would be. They have to adjust the power dynamics here somehow.

Nathan drops down until his head is level with Duke's cock, and with that move the tension relaxes somewhat in the body beneath his. Nathan's mouth is sore and his throat feels like sandpaper, but he can stand to use his tongue and his lips a little, and licks lightly while his equally-battered fingers pop the lid on the grease.

Duke makes a discomforted noise, rising to anger, as Nathan's fingers nudge at his ass, and Nathan frantically works his other hand to soothe and distract, lifting his head to rasp, "Trust me. I _know_ you. You like it. It's only fingers, and it won't _be_ any more than fingers."

"It had better not be." That's a pirate scowl and then some. Duke has, on occasion, complained they need to switch out their roles more often. Nathan's feeling his objections now as he never did before.

Nathan takes him a bit further into his mouth than he intended, trying to distract from what his fingers are doing, but at least Duke's thrusts quiet down as Nathan presses his fingers deeper and rigorous movement becomes unwise. Nathan draws his mouth clear with a grunt and leaves the fingers. He starts crawling back up Duke, who leans forward, tense and red-faced, the movements of his lower body limited by Nathan's fingers inside him, Nathan's knees atop his legs... His face looms very close and angry.

Nathan catches the back of his neck and mashes their lips together. His fingers find Duke's prostate, judging by the way Duke bucks against him and follows that up by dragging his lips clear to swear loudly and order, "Do that again, you fucking... _lying_... bastard."

Nathan's not sure when he lied or what Duke thinks he lied about, and inner disgruntlement protests he should have earned all the trust he'd ever need _last night_ , but he can do that again, and does. His own body will take the reprieve, though none of this is doing wonders for his back. Duke growls and swears that Red Duke Crocker doesn't get sodomized by anyone, but isn't actively struggling.

"It's fingers," Nathan scrapes out. His voice is a wreck. He nips and licks at Duke's throat. Beard in his mouth feels funny. He sneezes as the hairs tickle his nose. Every part of him moves with the sneeze and Duke yells and squeezes Nathan's ribs painfully hard. Nathan chokes and drags his face clear. It's not a very seductive moment, but from the way Duke's eyes fix on him, it's the right one. "More than fingers would probably feel pretty good, about now. You could even still be the one in control. Sit on top."

Duke rolls them over with a growl. His fingertips dig hard into Nathan's wrists as he drags them clear and presses him spread-eagled to the bed, but Nathan senses this isn't a fight. There's more of the real Duke in his eyes. It's matched with a lot of lust and Duke is just lowering, trying to line up, as a clanging alarm resounds around the ship.

"Fuck!" Nathan shouts, ripping the curse from his sore throat as Duke leaps away from him. He dives after, scrambling for his pants while Duke's already almost dressed. "What is that?" Other than _too damn soon_. He hasn't got enough of Duke back. He can't control him. If this means they'll see action first--

"Another ship. Could be the Navy, could be a merchant." Duke pats Nathan's face a few times, grinning broadly, and grabs at a few dangling buckles as he shoves his feet into his pretentious mid-calf pirate boots. He stumbles and needs to devote both hands to dragging each boot on. His coat swishes around him as he flaps out of the cabin.

Nathan's internal commentary is already damning everything in existence as he follows Duke on deck, even before he sees that the vessel they're approaching is a small merchant ship. Or it's _not_ a small merchant ship, because it's probably a small-to-mid-sized fishing boat out from one of Haven's neighbouring ports. But what it definitely isn't is Dwight and the coastguard and the rest of his officers back with Lexie to try and fix this fiasco. That wouldn't have been a choice scenario yet either, but at least none of those people would have been more civilian innocents.

"They're not even trying to flee," Jordan says with delight.

Duke frowns, clearly offended. "That means they haven't heard of me."

"Easy pickings, though," Jerry says. "We'll start the day with a feast." Jerry already has a rum bottle in his hand.

"Roll out the colours." Duke offers the crew a lazy shrug. "Might as well play with 'em a little." Up at the top of the mast, a skull-and-crossbones unfurls.

" _Don't_ ," says Nathan. God damn it, he was so _close_ to getting the real Duke Crocker back, but as things are... it's too soon to make a stand. All the same, he can't not. "Listen to me. You can't engage them!" He swings away from Duke's side, addressing the whole crew. "That's just a fishing boat, and you're _not_ pirates." His shirt isn't fastened properly and he's still got half an erection tenting his pants. This is the worst stand ever. "You're all regular citizens of a town called Haven, under a -- a spell. Caught up in someone's idea of a good story!"

Duke gives him a betrayed look. The crew just laugh at him. He feels someone grab and twist his arm, and a kick in the back of his leg drops him to his knees, and he realises Jordan's sidled behind him.

"We should tie him up again until it's over," she says. "Can't trust him running around free."

Duke says, "No. Let him go." When she does, while Nathan wavers and tries to persuade his leg to hold him up, Duke grabs him by the collar and slams him back against a wooden surface. "Damn you, this is _my_ ship. We're taking the merchanter. You want to be with me? This is what we do."

Nathan tries to drag in enough breath to talk. "Don't kill anyone," he begs, fingers clutching for Duke's collar in return. The coarse fabric feels more immediate than his usual reality, his abraded fingertips flare on his senses. "Don't _rape_ anyone. Nothing's happened yet that... can't be mended. Don't do anything permanent. I swear, I _swear_ you'll all regret it later if you let this go too far."

It comes out maybe like a threat. Duke slaps his face and Nathan's head jars back against the wood. "We're _pirates_. Where the hell's the fun in being pirates by the fucking... the Nathan Wuornos Rules?"

"Don't kill anyone," Nathan repeats. "I'll _help_. I swear, I'll co-operate. You'll have witnesses that I fought alongside you. The Navy will never take me back. You'll have that hold over me forever. Promise me you won't kill anyone."

Duke narrows his eyes but says, "This I want to see. Fine, 'Officer'. You take that ship for me. You can lead the boarding party beside Jordan."

Nathan nods desperately, so relieved he can't muster words. Duke keeps hold of his collar, refusing to let him step back. Duke's free hand reaches up to do something next to his own ear, then there's a sharp pain in the fleshy part of _Nathan's_ ear. Only then does Duke let go. Nathan's legs are unsteady and he leans against the wall. Pressing his hand to his ear, he feels warm, sticky blood and a hard metal ridge piercing his flesh. He lifts his head and stares at a dark, unoccupied pinprick in the pattern of gold hoops along Duke's earlobe.

 _Shit_. Nathan pulls his hand away, wipes it clean on his thigh, and glares around the crew. "Give me a sword."

"Cutlass," corrects Jordan, and extends him one handle-first. "Pirate."

They're milling and jostling around him as Jordan chooses her boarding party. Duke calls out instructions for approaching the smaller vessel. A hand catches Nathan's elbow. He jerks around to meet whoever's grabbing at him amid the confusion, half expecting a blow.

He's not expecting a kid. He -- no, _she_ , Nathan amends on closer inspection -- digs her fingernails into Nathan's arm in anger. She's holding a flat, metallic shape in her hand. It's completely incongruous with the time and place they're supposed to be. An e-reader. What the _hell_ \--?

"You're _supposed_ to be Lieutenant Nathaniel Chalmsley," she tells him, a sullen and particularly teenage note of complaint in her voice. "Stop _ruining_ everything."

Nathan stumbles again as the world jolts around him. When he looks up, the ship's boy is scampering away with a book under one arm. Lieutenant Wuornos looks beyond the kid to the ship in the distance, which is trying to swing around and catch the winds to escape now they can see their danger, but they haven't a hope of matching the speed of the _Rouge_. He shakes his head and can't imagine what got into him, to be standing idle like this. He has to lead the boarding party if he's going to save the merchant's crew.

Maybe in so doing he can prove himself to the fearsome pirate the Red Duke -- and in the proving, earn some kindness, or even what he's increasingly growing to realise he most desires... his affection.

***

**7.**

Duke tries to watch the raid with a ready, critical eye, simultaneously tuned to his own ship and its rhythms. He doubts the merchant vessel will pull out any canon or explosives that can threaten the _Rouge_ , and it would be ill-timed bad luck indeed for a cry to go up from the crow's nest announcing the arrival of the Navy while they're thus engaged. Shit happens, though.

Despite his efforts, there's a big part of him that only has eyes for Lieutenant Wuornos.

Wuornos... _Nathan_ , damn it, and when the hell did he start calling him anything else? Nathan's movements look different. Perhaps it's the adrenaline. Duke can't help but notice he's carrying that cutlass much differently now than when he was first handed it, wielding it like he at least knows how to use a blade.

That's pretty funny, in some corner of Duke's brain, and he doesn't understand why.

From out of nowhere it comes to him that Nathan is going to be _really_ pissed about the earring.

He doesn't understand that, either. Somehow this guy can make him anxious at the thought of his wrath, even though he's not afraid of Wuor-- of Nathan, and the very idea of being afraid of Nathan is ridiculous. But as he's just proven, he can make Duke do things... make him _want_ to do those things, like they're normal and harmless, neither insult to his manhood nor threat to his power. Duke's thoughts drift again to what it might feel like to have Nathan inside him.

...Except he _knows_ , and none of this has been a first time for either of them -- except, _fuck_ , the _public sex_ , and Nathan is going to be fucking fuming about _that_.

Or the public sex and the dress-up, Duke amends, looking down at the gear he's clad in.

Two identities balance in Duke's mind and he's not certain he knows exactly who he is -- there's too much of it, all hovering just within reach, to absorb at once -- but he's sure as he can be that it's not _this_. Look at his _ship_ , damn it, and what the _hell_? A spot of not-so-honest acquisition and smuggling, sure, maybe that's been his line in the past, but rape, pillage, murder? Painting the seas red with blood? No. In fact... _no_ blood, none: he's pretty sure that part is very important.

Also, he's just sent Nathan on a pointless mission. Angry with himself, frustrated at his still-incomplete sense of what's happening, he raises a hand, intending to shout orders to bring the boarding party back, but realises the scuffle is over. They're coming back anyway. Jordan is kicking two tied men in front of her, teasing their buttocks with the point of her cutlass. She's being eyed sternly by Nathan, whose main concern is the girl he pushes ahead of him, youngish and wearing a desperately impractical dress that no-one should be wearing aboard a boat. Others of the boarding party are herding back more prisoners, but not many. The boat was small, crewed by half a dozen. Injuries look minimal. Nathan looks stressed and weirdly, vacantly triumphant.

Duke goes to meet him, not sure what he's going to say first, but... it feels like he's been oblivious to everything important that happened in the last twenty-four hours.

On top of everything else, he still needs Nathan to fill in the gaps.

Instead, he gets glazed, earnest eyes with a backdrop of anxiety. "Captain Crocker...!" Duke almost falls over backwards. There's no recognition of him there, that infuriating, alluring _I know you_ that infused Nathan's actions since they pulled him aboard. Staring back at him is the precise, proper Lieutenant that Duke took him for in the beginning.

" _Nathan_ \--?" he starts, and is about to continue, _what the hell happened to you?_ when Jerry hauls the woman away from Nathan with a victory cry, sending her stumbling into the middle of the deck, and Nathan goes ballistic.

" _No_!" He lurches after her, arms wide, and tries to put himself between the whole crew and the girl, who's a little too old to be a girl and a little too plain for the damsel in distress role. He draws his blade and makes it clear he'll fight them all for her virtue. "Stop this. There was a deal."

Duke rolls his eyes.

Jerry steps into Nathan's space. "There was a deal. No-one's dead. Yet."

"You'll keep your hands from her! From any of them!" Nathan's eyes travel to two young men from the merchant crew, alike enough they're probably brothers. His dialogue and diction make Duke want to groan, but he wasn't like this before.

There's a grunt of effort from Jordan as she slams the handle of her cutlass into the side of Jerry's head. He crumbles to the floor and she steps back, staring around helplessly like she doesn't understand why she did it. "Put the woman in the cells," she orders, voice harsh, jabbing her fingers at two female crew. Her eyes are too wide, face too pale. Her gaze goes from the woman to Nathan and for a moment she looks actually _ill_. "What the hell's happening?" She asks it of Nathan, not her captain, but it seems that Nathan doesn't have the answers anymore.

Duke can only say, "I don't know, but he was right. Until we _do_ know, nothing untoward befalls these people." He glares around his crew. "Lock them up. Lock them all up." He reaches out and grabs Nathan's shoulder. "We need to _talk_."

As he swings around, herding Nathan back into the interior of his ship, he almost slams them both into the ship's boy. The kid drops his book and with a squeak of dismay goes scrambling after it. Duke's almost distracted -- that didn't sound a very masculine noise, for one -- but he has other things on his mind. He leaves the crew to Jordan, God help them, and retreats with Nathan to his cabin.

"What the _hell_ is wrong with you?" He shoves Nathan's shoulders against the wall.

Nathan's tongue flicks out over his bruised lips. "I won't apologise for--" Duke recognises fear well; the man whoever's causing this Trouble wants him to be has every kind of experience with it. That dissonance finally breaks the last threads holding his mind. In the past twenty-four hours, Duke has battled the strangeness of knowing he loves this man, while acting upon that in ways that ought to be _deeply_ dissonant, but somehow aren't. Nothing he's done has prompted fear of him in Nathan until now.

Those twenty-four hours crash down over him. _Fuck_. Red Duke Crocker, scourge of the seas? It would be ridiculous if he hadn't -- if he hadn't--

He falls into Nathan with a groan, burying his face into the angle of his neck, curling arms around his ribs. That draws a small, painful gasp as he grips too tight, and a bunch of other stuff slides into place. Shit. Oh, _shit_.

Nervous arms curl hesitantly around him in return, and he feels the hard line of Nathan's jaw against the top of his head. It's _not_ Nathan though: just some poor, brutalized, stupid sap who's been superimposed over him, who thinks abuse equals love.

Well...

Duke comes up clasping his hands either side of Nathan's face, kissing him like he can bring him back to himself, though he remembers now that it didn't work when their positions were reversed. Not with just a kiss, anyway. Nathan's efforts in more x-rated territory prove this is no fairy tale, but were evidently making an impression. 

"I am gonna fix this," Duke promises Nathan's wide, clueless eyes. He holds onto Nathan anyway while he thinks. "I don't get this. You were fine. You were _you_ \-- sort of -- at least thinking clearly, I _think_... It's pretty hard to remember. But now, if they whammied you deliberately, _just_ you... Whoever's Trouble this is, they'd have to be on _board_."

Everyone on board thinks they're a pirate. Duke swears, and stares at Nathan, who can't give him answers. He has to find them himself. Maybe the Troubled person is caught up in it, too, and not completely in control. Or else... they're shamming. Because it's not _usual_ , someone consciously using their Trouble to fuck with other people, but it's not unknown either. Troubled people come in 'asshole' variety just like any other kind. "The boy. Nathan!" He clutches him with renewed fervour, trying to ignore the jolt that travels through Lieutenant Wuornos. Maybe it's not Nathan, but the man buried in there somewhere knows what he means, so hell with it. "You said we were in a book. Ship's boy's been reading off in a corner since we got here."

"A book." Nathan nods earnestly. Duke thinks he sees a spark of awareness. He sure as hell hopes so, because he doesn't think he can cope with Lieutenant Wuornos giving him hurt puppy-dog-eyes for long before he lands a punch in that expression. "Wait--!" As Duke moves to pull away, Nathan grabs after him. His fingers curl into the shoulders of Duke's garish pirate outfit and his mouth works like he can't come up with quite the words to speak, but it's clear there's something important he's trying to remember.

Duke groans and presses his forehead into his hand. "We can't confront him. You, you must have found him, and he got you good, right? That means we have to... to wait for... _Lexie_." His brain pulls the name out and it's like that's the one last thing he needed for everything else to fall into place. Lexie! There's help coming from the shore. "Lexie can fix this without getting mind-fucked..."

This time his kiss is received with a measure more fire, so perhaps Nathan's starting to make his way back. It would take too long to use his own methods to fix him, and it's unnecessary in the circumstances. It's _Duke's_ ship. He's _not_ a lone captive in this scenario. He has options Nathan didn't. He grabs his sea-charts, and they look antiquated, but are hopefully his usual sea charts. He grabs his navigational tools to go with them, and Nathan's arm, and hauls the whole lot back on deck.

There, he gives orders for a change of course, and they head for shore with the merchanter in tow. The crew don't question him, though some of them probably really are sailors who can feel the changes in the air and tide that tell them they're coming back to land. Duke hopes the Troubled kid with the book doesn't have any sense of the sea. He thinks Jordan has an inkling what's going on, but she's on-side... for once, though the looks she keeps shooting him are pure poison. He can't imagine how she came to be cast as his First Mate. Must have come off as piratical enough to spark the imagination of their Troubled person, with all her hard edges, black leather and spikes.

It's early afternoon before they cross the path of the Navy vessel. Surely a Harbour Patrol boat in reality, it remains a Navy vessel to Duke's eyes no matter how he squints at it. His crew are readying for combat, though he hasn't given the orders.

"Drop anchor and _chill_ ," he says, and they stare at him, baffled.

"You're not going to fight?" Nathan asks, beside him. His uniform still looks like the ones Dwight and the other... cops... are wearing, but it's grubby and torn, stained with dust and blood and other body fluids. Captain Crocker was not gentle with him. That fucking earring still sits in his ear, surrounded by crusted blood. Duke tries to remember what Nathan was actually wearing, yesterday morning. It's a... it's the dark green shirt and his crappier jeans, Duke thinks.

"We need the woman." He nods gently toward the female figure on the deck of the Navy ship. Lexie, contrary to all those around her, still appears to be clad in a tank top, leather skirt and jacket and -- Duke squints -- a fine pair of fuck-me boots. Part of him won't ever get over seeing Audrey's body dressed that way.

The ship's boy is suddenly leaning beside them, staring and gawping, hands white-knuckled upon the rail -- and yeah, in full light, that's definitely a young woman. The girl from the _Gull_. Sixteen, seventeen, tops, but she could pass for fourteen. Duke is staggered by the reality of who did this to them. He consciously moves away from her, and moves Nathan away, too, as he has been doing whenever he's been aware of the ship's boy near them throughout the last stages of their voyage.

"Why does she _look_ like that?" the girl bursts out angrily, turning on them as they're stumbling back. "It's all completely _wrong_!"

Lexie lifts up a megaphone and hails, "Hello in the pirate ship!"

As they close in, Duke notices her tank top has a skull and crossbones on it. His head jerks from her to the girl, but the girl isn't trying to do anything. Maybe she recognises playtime's over. She _is_ just a kid.

"Hey! Talking here!" Lexie yells. "You guys! Captain Duke freakin' Sparrow! Are you ready to negotiate?!"

Duke raises a hand and offers a stiff wave. Beside him, Nathan is staring open-mouthed... and who knows what he's making of Lexie while he's stuck in the eighteen-hundreds, or whenever? "Fine! Come on over and negotiate all you want!"

***

**8.**

Nathan is still shaking his head and trying to straighten out who he is and where he is as Lexie pounces on the kid. The girl holds up her e-reader like a shield, or like a talisman she can use to will the situation back into submission. Their piratical surroundings are already peeling away from the world, and when Lexie snatches the e-reader, reality starts to roll out in bigger and bigger patches. Jordan's the one who finishes it, delivering a resounding slap across the girl's face with an open palm. The way the girl jerks at the impact of Jordan's skin suggests their Troubles are returning, too. As she falls, the break-up of the imposed reality becomes complete in one last rush.

A fading impression of a hand on his shoulder turns Nathan around to face Dwight. The last of the Lieutenant fades from his mind and takes feeling with it. Nathan shudders, and Dwight asks, "Are you alright?"

"I'm..." Nathan gives up on trying to think of an answer. "That was weird."

Dwight eyes his clothes. Nathan looks down. He's relieved to see the uniform has disappeared along with his ability to feel all the scrapes, not least because the darker colours of his own clothes do a better job of masking the stains.

"I'm not injured," he confirms. "It's all just small stuff." Except that if someone showed up at the police station with the same story that's in evidence on his body, he'd be thinking _rape kit_ , and Dwight is no less proficient at his job.

" _You can't just do things like that to people_!" Jordan hissed as she slapped the Troubled girl, and her eyes are locked on Nathan now. He supposes he'll have to talk to her sooner or later, but currently the best he can manage is a neutral expression back.

He's lost sight of Duke and Lexie. The _Cape Rouge_ is moving again, the distant harbour pulling closer, so he guesses Duke's in the wheelhouse. Lexie's probably not far. People are milling around, fear and confusion rising. The girl who was the ship's boy huddles, crying, over by the stern.

"I'll leave it up to you what goes in your report," Dwight says, ducking his head and keeping his voice low. Then Dwight gets claimed by the noise and panic of the regular citizens around them who've just woken up to this clusterfuck. Nathan has as much experience as Dwight and should probably be helping, but he has no words for any of these people, today. He figures after the role marked out for him in this drama, he's doing enough if he handles himself, off quietly to one side, and doesn't add to anyone else's work.

With that responsibility assigned, he takes himself below to find a change of clothes. Either steal some of Duke's, or if he's in luck maybe he left something of his own here that won't bag so obviously on his thinner frame. It's reassuring to see the _Cape Rouge_ as herself again, and also that he didn't smash anything below when he broke out of his cell.

Nathan takes an extra few minutes to splash cold water on his face, and several more dampening a towel and using it to try rub the worst of the accumulations of sex and other grime off his skin while he's stripped. At least everyone else's stink and the abundance of rum hid the smell before. He hopes he fixes himself well enough that Dwight and Lexie and the rest of his people won't catch whatever lingers.

When he finally ventures out, they're sliding into the _Rouge's_ usual berth. Lexie corners him almost the instant he emerges into sunlight. "There you are! Good, you've managed to clean up." Relief in her voice, but far outmatched by a tight tension in every line of her body as she pulls him aside. She looks around furtively before she puts her mouth close to his ear. "Jordan's claiming Crocker raped you in front of the whole ship. Is that true?"

" _No_." Nathan can feel the bottom drop out of the world, but speaks with force. "That... It _wasn't_ Duke. Besides, Duke and I are -- you know what Duke and I are."

"She seems really shaken by it." By her own culpability, more like. Nathan thinks about feeling her hands restrain him. But none of this can be pleasant for someone with Jordan's history. He supposes it's no surprise that the threat Jerry posed to the captive woman brought her around. "She was raped by her boyfriend, you know."

"It's not _like_ that!" Nathan snarls, his rage bursting out unintentionally, and he finds it hard to hold back -- finds that after the last day and night, he has a _lot_ of rage. " _I'm_ not the one usually being asked to do something I don't want--" He stops. Lexie's eyebrows are going up.

Her eyes sort of gleam, darkly. "I've had a few who were kinky that way," she says wryly.

"I _know_ ," he says sourly, wondering again why Lexie revels so in serenading them with tales of her sexual conquests. He's really not up for that right now. Nor any time while she's wearing Audrey's body.

She lifts her hands. "Hey, all I'm saying is different stripes and all -- if you tell me you're good, and you want me to never mention it again, I will get Jordan to back off. It's not like I _want_ Duke in the shit for something a Trouble made him do."

"No." He supposes that ought to stand for Jordan as well, although Jordan is already due a lifetime of free pardons from him. But he is pissed off with Jordan anyway. She tied him down. And he's still pissed off with Duke, even knowing what they were up against, because he does _know_ he couldn't have retrieved himself from the full imprint of Lieutenant Chalmsley. So he needs to get the fuck over this. The straits these people have seen him in... well, it's not going to damage their opinion of him any further. So what does it matter? He groans and scrubs his hand across his face, aware he still has to produce a proper answer for Lexie. "I'm all right. I just need to..." He stops. _To get out of here_ , might have been next on his lips, or perhaps, _To go home_. But home is an empty shell, and here is where he's been spending most nights. "To crash. To be Nathan again for a while, before I can think about anything else."

What he needs is _Duke_. He needs all these people gone.

"Yeah, I know that feeling." Lexie rolls her eyes in sympathy and pulls a face as her gaze falls on his ear. "You know you've still got a... thing...?" Her finger does a little jig around her own piercings.

Nathan reaches up automatically, but he can't feel his ear. He brings his fingers back with a few broken crusts of dried blood and a small smear of fresh. Lexie touches his earlobe and he can feel there's still metal in there as the small pain makes a brief return. He sighs. "Red Duke wanted me to be a pirate." All those hoops in his ear that were part of an illusion, and trust Duke to stick him with the one earring that was real.

Lexie flicks her own ironmongery and gives him a teasing grin. "We could start a new HPD trend."

He reluctantly laughs with her, and catches her hand as it comes down. He hasn't gotten along very well with Lexie since she came back in Audrey's stead, but it feels like something just changed. "Thanks," he says. "Please... uh, reassure Jordan. Duke didn't do anything I can't get past. We all know what Troubles do to people. I'll be fine."

She nods and feeling leaves his body for the last time as she pulls away.

The rest of the day is spent clearing up their separate messes, between the _Gull_ and the _Rouge_ and the mass civilian involvement in this Trouble. That includes the crew of the fishing boat who weren't in at the beginning, who were prisoners and not pirates, and were scared spitless by the whole experience. There are plenty of people from earlier who had a briefer encounter with terror as Captain Crocker and his band cut their swath across the town on their way back to Duke's ship.

Nathan's last contact with Duke from lunchtime until dusk is a kiss shared on the deck of the _Cape Rouge_ as they're about to depart for the station. In front of the same people as before, it's an act of defiance as much as reassurance.

The kid -- whose name is Eileen Jackman, distantly related to the Chambers family and new in town -- gapes at them from where she stands ready to disembark. She isn't in handcuffs but Lexie's hold on her arm looks tight. "It worked?" she squeaks.

"Nothing 'worked', you little brat," Lexie says, shaking her. "They've been boning each other for weeks. It's probably the only reason this didn't all go much worse for everyone. Not disparaging your taste in reading matter -- hey, _The Officer and The Duke_ , who doesn't want to be ravaged by Red Duke Crombie? -- or your active sexual fantasy life for your age. But these are two real dudes, so shut the fuck up."

Several times throughout the rest of that day, Nathan thinks about, _It's probably the only reason this didn't all go much worse for everyone_. The day is long and arduous, weighted by the anticipation of facing Duke again at the end of it. He has no injuries worthy of real medical attention but Lucassi gets the metal out of his ear and sterilizes the piercing, and returns the earring to him in a plastic evidence bag to go back to Duke. Lexie goes out for coffee and returns with an additional tube of foundation to cover the finger-print bruises on his jaw. None of the damage slows him down physically, and Dwight can't argue he's unfit for work unless Nathan admits the full extent of what happened. But mostly Lexie picks up the slack around him. He'll owe her.

She drives him back to the _Rouge_ at the end of the day, too, because his car is still at the marina.

"Kiss your hot boyfriend for me," she tells him through the wound-down window. He thinks it's something she only says because she's taken to saying it and doesn't want to break the routine. They're clinging to a facade of ordinariness, pretending this is just a normal day. Even Haven-normal is more normal than this.

Her eyes before she leaves are still asking him, _Are you sure?_

Nathan walks around the boat calling for Duke, and is actually starting to wonder if he's still at _The Grey Gull_ by the time he finds him. Duke's sprawled out on top of his bed. He's changed the sheets and aired the room, but the full memory of the smell hits Nathan anyway, sex and sweat, blood and rum. Of course, the cabin didn't look like this yesterday, but scents affect him more than most people.

He sits on the very end of the bed, carefully, as Duke blinks fully awake and rolls up on his elbows. He meets Nathan's eyes for a second before averting his gaze. "We work too hard," he says. "Wrecked bars to clean. Staff to... Staff who took bribing and begging to get them to _remain_ staff. Responsibilities. We've far too many of them. Otherwise there's no way it would've taken a whole day for us to have this talk."

"What talk?" says Nathan, too closely followed by, "You'd rather run off to be a pirate?"

"Hey, now," Duke replies warningly. They stare at each other. Duke's gaze wriggles its way back to meeting Nathan's eyes eventually. "Last night was way out of line, and that's not even getting into what happened _before_ last night. I did things--"

"It wasn't you." Nathan shifts on the bed, half wanting to go to him.

"I remember doing them." Duke's eyes are dark and serious.

"So what? I remember being... Lieutenant Dickless... but that sure as hell wasn't me."

A snort of laughter involuntarily escapes Duke, then the distance between them drops away, and they're together, kissing, hands working on clothes, disrobing each other tiredly. Duke backs off to gripe, "Nathan, what the hell is that smell?"

Nathan sniffs, for a moment being pulled back again by the smell of sweat and sex, blood and rum... until he realises his mistake. "TCP." There's a blob of cotton wool soaked in antiseptic taped to his ear. He got used to it, stopped registering it. He takes the evidence bag out of the crumpled pile of his jeans and hands it back to Duke, who winces and slings it on the night-stand with a curse and a shake of his head.

"Jesus." Duke squats back on the bed, naked and oddly vulnerable.

"I'm sorry," Nathan blurts, uncomfortably, getting the words out before he can change his mind.

"Jesus," Duke says again, and clings to his head. "Why are _you_ apologising?"

Nathan scratches his forehead, needing the distraction, the excuse to hide his face, and ventures stiltedly, "Sometimes, I force you into a role. That I know you're not. Comfortable with. Among other things." Spending twenty-four hours telling himself _that's not Duke_ brought that home.

" _Nate_." Duke puts his hands on Nathans' face. "If you need... tough love... I can do that. Although if you ask me to do that tonight I may just punch you instead. Or I guess there's too much chance you'd still enjoy that, so maybe I'll just sulk. But _for fuck's sake_ , now is _not_ the time to be apologising to _me_." He closes his eyes and his hands rub Nathan's face, movement that Nathan can't respond to, and says with difficulty, "You felt it. Hell, I had your blood on me more than once and nothing happened, so I know my thing wasn't working, and you were... weird... all through that."

Nathan nods, letting Duke feel the motion through his hands.

A moment later, Duke's eyes pop open. "Wait. _You_... did you _enjoy_ that?" His voice rises in outrage, and his breath hisses. Nathan isn't sure why that possibility would upset Duke more than the rest, but he shakes his head irritably and when he finds he's too impeded to carry the movement out, grabs at Duke's wrists, fighting the force of their grip.

"I -- it's not _simple_ , okay, Duke? Damn it..." The scene on the deck had been a nightmare: public humiliation and sensation overload. He's not used to pain. He's not used to _pleasure_. He's not even sure how much he was able to distinguish one from the other. "I was a mess." The fact remains that probably it would have been worse for someone normal. "I wasn't thinking about... mainly I was thinking about bringing you back. The rest was... It was distracting and I couldn't stand it and I still wanted to _feel_ every minute of it."

He breathes harshly, the admission out, waiting for Duke's response.

"Sorry." Duke backtracks with a groan and sags forward into Nathan. "I just... It kills me to think that you could feel me and that was what I did with it."

"Might be other chances." Nathan doesn't much care and he thinks that comes through in his voice. The whole town might have given up on the idea of killing him when Audrey came back as Lexie, since he's fucking Duke anyway, but he doesn't deserve to be normal, and after living all this time without feeling, he'll never really _be_ normal.

But right now, lying down with Duke, who is pliant and lets him rearrange them both, he wonders if 'normal' gets overrated anyway.

 _Pliant_ doesn't ever mean Duke shuts up. "I might just get you an earring for that ear," he opts to offer, the tease a fraction stiff, filled with more determination to try and project his usual self than anything else.

Nathan hopes his face illustrates his opinion of that and warns Duke against any hopes of Nathan wearing it. He wriggles to put himself underneath Duke, who clears his throat and glares at him.

"Remember where we were interrupted this morning?" Nathan asks.

Duke's face clears. "Yeah. You're a _pushy_ SOB, Lieutenant Dickless. My pirate-self couldn't even believe you had me ready to do that."

"Does your pirate-self have any objections about it now?"

Duke snorts and leans over him, catching his mouth in a kiss that starts hesitant, but grows in confidence as Nathan reciprocates. "That guy got voted off the island." He backs away again, warily. "I mean, if you're _sure_ this is still where you want to be, after yesterday, and last night. With that guy..." He tips his head, eyes full of pain. "You'd have to be sure."

He places a hand cautiously on Nathan's chest, as if he's not convinced he has any right to touch, in a fashion Nathan finds... irksome. Offputting, in some hovering, awful fashion that could turn into something worse if he were to spend too much time exploring the thought.

He won't.

Nathan thinks, instead, that Lexie had it right. If they hadn't already been lovers, people might have been hurt today -- really hurt, not just shocked and shaken. Without the connection between them to bring Duke far enough back for reason, the people on the captured fishing boat would not have fared well. When Dwight returned with Lexie, there would have been a fight. Lives might have been lost.

He slaps Duke's tentative hand southwards, pushing it over his groin and holding it there. "Duke. There won't _be_ a day when I'm afraid of you."

Something in Duke's face clears and his eyes shimmer... with mixed things, Nathan suspects, admittedly, but at least some part of that mix is laughing at him.

"You're not that guy. Not even close." He reaches for Duke's face again, pulling him back in, and kisses Duke like he can deliver conviction the same way he used his passion to batter against the claws of Eileen's Trouble… None of this was _Duke's fault_. He sucks at words. He'll prove it with his body, instead. Something else occurs to him, courtesy of the fading after-echo of Lexie's remark still reverberating in his brain, a concept which makes him twitch and grimace and pull away. He chokes. He grabs and strokes Duke's hair to give reassurance this is _not about him_ as he sees the retreat come back into his lover's eyes. "Fuck. We saved the day with _pirate sex_." He hears the disgust in his own voice.

...Duke's face clears, and Duke right now is _definitely_ laughing at him, entertained by his sense of outrage. Duke snorts and folds him in a tight embrace. It's mostly relief, if Nathan ignores the glisten of moisture in his eyes, mostly the promise of healing.

But Nathan is irritated, to say the least, to be the one left voicing this inarguably asinine truth while Duke lapses uncharacteristically silent and shirks the subject. Because it's _ridiculous_ , _insane_ , and _annoying_.

Their relationship has _clearly defined roles_.

Those things are Duke's job.

END


End file.
